
Class. 
Book.. 
GopyrigM 

CQHRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
IN WAR TIME 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

MBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 

MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
TORONTO 



ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 
IN WAR TIME 



BY 

THE RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE 

O^ M, 



jfteto gorfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1918 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1918 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, December, 1918 



DEC -4 1918 
©CMS 08400 



PREFACE 

This book contains three essays, written in the first two 
years of the war to explain to neutral nations the aims, 
and justify the action, of Great Britain. They are 
followed by three Addresses of a non-political charac- 
ter, treating of war in general, its causes and some of 
its phenomena, its social effects, its relation to human 
progress. The last two essays now appear in print for 
the first time. They have been written very recently, 
with a view to that close of the war which seems to be 
rapidly approaching. One of them examines the his- 
tory and the meaning of what is called the principle of 
Nationality, and sets forth briefly the questions requir- 
ing the application of that principle which will arise 
when a treaty of peace has to be made, and the de- 
mands of peoples, or parts of peoples, dissatisfied with 
their present rulers, have to be met. The eighth and 
last chapter deals with the idea or plan of a League of 
Nations to enforce peace — a subject on which the au- 
thor has had the advantage since the first months of 
the war of a constant correspondence with American 
friends. It is intended not so much to advocate the 
formation of such a League — for that seems now to 
be finding general acceptance — as to set out briefly 
what the functions of such a League might be, what 
organs it would need for the discharge of those func- 
tions, what objections have been taken to it, what are 
the answers to such objections, and what are the condi- 
tions of our time which may encourage hopes for its 
success. 

There is, in the first three essays, some amount of 



vi ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES 

repetition, which may, it is hoped, be to some extent 
excused on the ground that as these essays present what 
is practically the same subject from different points of 
view, it was sometimes necessary to state the same facts 
in different relations. The facts themselves are so 
strange and yet in the swift passage of events so apt 
to be imperfectly remembered, that they deserve to be 
re-stated. 

The whole volume was in print before the startling 
events of October had brought the close of the war so 
much nearer. The earlier essays are left unchanged, 
because they were written to convey to foreign readers 
a concise and so far as possible unbiassed account of the 
motives and temper, the views and moral judgments 
with which Britain was prosecuting the war at a time 
when its issue, though certain to ourselves, appeared 
doubtful to many foreign observers. It seems better 
to leave them to speak from the days when Englishmen 
were bewildered by the doctrines as well as the conduct 
of their enemies, and were seeking explanations of what 
was so new to their experience. The clouds are now 
beginning to lift, already we understand some things 
better than we did three or four years ago, and we 
hope to learn much more. Happily that which we 
most desired has come to pass. This is a war of prinr 
ciples, and the course of events has vindicated the prin- 
ciples of morality and humanity that were at stake. 

October 12, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I PAGE 

Neutral Nations and the War i 

CHAPTER II 
The Attitude of Great Britain in the Present War 19 

CHAPTER III 
The War State: Its Mind and Its Methods . . 44 

CHAPTER IV 
War and Human Progress 72 

CHAPTER V 

Presidential Address Delivered to the British 

Academy, June 30, 1915 103 

CHAPTER VI 

Presidential Address Delivered to the British 
Academy, July 14, 1916 119 

CHAPTER VII 
The Principle of Nationality and Its Applications 141 

CHAPTER VIII 
Concerning a Peace League 176 

Appendix 205 



CHAPTER I 

NEUTRAL NATIONS AND THE WAR 
Prefatory Note, written in October 191 8 

This article, written and published in the autumn of 
1 9 14, is now reprinted in its original form, in order that 
it may show what was the impression produced upon 
Englishmen by the events of the first two months of 
war. The audacious avowal by the German Govern- 
ment of the doctrine that military necessity warrants 
breaches of international good faith and common right, 
and the declarations which were then first brought to 
the notice of the British people, proceeding from 
eminent German authorities, that the State stands above 
all morality and all human feeling, and may adopt 
any war methods conducive to success, were accom- 
panied by an unprovoked invasion of Belgium and by 
the savage treatment of its non-combatant inhabitants. 
That invasion and the attempts to justify it struck us 
with an amazement it is well to recall, for now, after 
four years of war, no action, however outrageous, on 
the part of the enemy Powers surprises us. It seems 
proper, therefore, to let what was written in 1914 
stand unchanged as some evidence of what we then 
felt, and of our unwillingness to believe that the per- 
nicious theory proclaimed by German writers, and the 
practice which went almost beyond the theory, could be 
approved by the German people, whom some of us 
had known in earlier years as a humane and kindly 

1 



2 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

people, a people whose literature we had admired, and 
for whose services to learning and science we were 
grateful. 

But if these pages were to be now rewritten, I should 
be bound to write them differently, and should have to 
recognize that the view such Englishmen then took 
was more indulgent than it could have been if we had 
known and understood the change which had passed 
upon the German mind since 1870. It is difficult now 
to cling to the hope expressed in 19 14 that the principles 
avowed by the German Government and put in practice 
by its High Command were held by only a small mi- 
nority of the nation. 

Allowance must doubtless be made in judging the 
attitude of the German people, not only for the excite- 
ment evoked by a tremendous crisis, which made any 
criticism of their rulers seem unpatriotic and for the 
fear of Russia which then possessed them, but also 
for the mendacity with which the Government, through 
its pliant tool the German press, have tricked and 
misled their credulous and submissive subjects. Public 
opinion is, and has long been, manufactured by the 
Government, partly through the newspapers, partly 
owing to the deference paid to declarations proceeding 
from it. A friend who lived in Germany till 19 13, and 
knows it thoroughly, writes to me : " German opinion 
is very ill-educated and very ill-informed politically. 
The pressure on public and private opinion is enormous; 
a German needs to be a superman if he would stand 
out boldly for his convictions; and supermen, if they 
exist, are rare." 

Ever since the war began the people have been fed 
up with falsehoods. The aims and motives of Britain 
and the United States have been persistently misrepre- 
sented. Baseless calumnies have been propagated re- 



, NEUTRAL NATIONS 3 

garding the conduct of British soldiers and sailors, 
while the offences committed on sea and land, by order 
of the German High Command, have been either con- 
cealed or covered up by a tissue of deceits. Concealed, 
also, were the massacres of the Eastern Christians per- 
petrated by those " trusty Turkish Allies," whom the 
German Government took to its bosom, and when 
German missionaries sought to publish the facts they 
were promptly silenced. A strict and stern censorship 
has repressed every attempt to make the truth known, 
has forbidden criticism, and stifled the voice of truth. 
Deeds at which the world grew pale are perhaps hardly 
more known to the German peasant or artizan than 
to the black soldiers of Germany in Africa. 

Yet, after every allowance has been made, it remains 
a marvel that in a nation like Germany so few of the 
leaders, in learning, science, education, and, above all, 
in religion, should have been found bold enough to 
condemn, and so many ready to defend, crimes which 
some at least among them must have known, and which 
would have shocked the generations of Kant and 
Goethe and Schiller, of Savigny and Schleiermacher 
and Neander. What has become of the nation's con- 
science? 

The explanation some have that the university 
teachers and the clergy of the Churches recognized by 
the State are in bondage to the Government does not 
suffice. There must have been some other cause at 
work to produce this callousness. Patriotism itself 
must have been perverted by false teachings and bad 
examples. I have tried in two later chapters (Essay 
III. and Essay VI.) to indicate some of the influences 
which may have engendered this extravagant national- 
ism and sown the seeds of this moral decline which 
make the new Germany unlike the old. 



4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

The present war has had some unexpected conse- 
quences. It has called the attention of the world out- 
side Germany to certain amazing doctrines proclaimed 
there, which strike at the root of all international 
morality, as well as of all international law, and which 
threaten a return to the primitive savagery when every 
tribe was wont to plunder and massacre its neighbours. 

These doctrines may be found set forth in the widely 
circulated book of General von Bernhardi, entitled 
Germany and the Next War, published in 191 1, and 
professing to be mainly based on the teachings of the 
famous professor of history, Heinrich von Treitschke. 

To readers in other countries, and, I trust, to most 
readers in Germany also, these doctrines will appear to 
be an outburst of militarism run mad, the product 
of a brain intoxicated by the love of war and by super- 
heated national self-consciousness. 

They would have deserved little notice, much less 
refutation, but for one deplorable fact, viz. that action 
has recently been taken by the Government of a great 
nation (though, as we venture to hope, without the 
approval of that nation) which is consonant with them, 
and seems to imply a belief in their soundness. 

This fact is the conduct of the German Imperial 
Government, in violating the neutrality of Belgium, 
which Prussia, as well as Great Britain and France, 
had solemnly guaranteed by a treaty (made in 1839 
and renewed in 1870) ; in invading Belgium when she 
refused to allow her armies to pass through to attack 
France, although France, the other belligerent, had 
solemnly undertaken not to enter Belgium; and in 
treating the Belgian cities and people, against whom she 
had no cause of quarrel, with a harshness unprecedented 
in the history of modern European warfare. 

What are these doctrines? I do not for a moment 



! NEUTRAL NATIONS 5 

attribute them to the learned class in Germany, for 
whom I have profound respect, recognizing their im- 
mense services to science and learning; nor to the bulk 
of the civil administration, a body whose capacity and 
uprightness are known to all the world; and least of 
all to the German people generally. That the latter 
hold no such views appears from General Bernhardi's 
own words, for he repeatedly complains of, and de- 
plores the pacific tendencies of, his fellow-countrymen. 1 

Nevertheless, the fact that the action referred to, 
which these doctrines seem to have prompted, and which 
cannot be defended except by them, has been actually 
taken, and has thus brought into this war Great Britain, 
whose interests and feelings made her desire peace, 
renders it proper to call attention to them and to all 
that they involve. 

I have certainly no prejudice in the matter, for I 
have been one of those who for many years laboured 
to promote good relations between Germans and 
Englishmen, peoples that ought to be friends, and that 
never before had been enemies, and I had hoped and 
believed till the beginning of August 19 14 that there 
would be no war, because Belgian neutrality would be 
respected. 

Nor was it only for the Jake of Britain and Germany 
that the English friends of peace sought to maintain 
good feeling. We had hoped, as some leading German 
statesmen had hoped, that a friendliness with Germany 
might enable Britain, with the co-operation of the 
United States (our closest friends), to mitigate the 
long antagonism of Germany and of France, with whom 
we were already on good terms, and to so improve 
their relations as to secure the general peace of Europe. 

1 See pp. 10-14 of English translation, and note the phrase, "Aspirations 
for peace seem to poison the soul of the German people." 



6 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

Into the causes which frustrated these efforts and 
so suddenly brought on this war I will not enter. 
Many others have dealt with them. 1 Moreover, the 
facts, at least as we in England see and believe them, 
and as the documents seem to prove them to be, appear 
not to be known to the German people, and the motives 
of the chief actors have not yet been fully ascertained. 

One thing, however, I can confidently declare. It 
was neither commercial rivalry nor jealousy of Ger- 
man power that brought Britain into the field. Nor 
was there any hatred in the British people for Ger- 
many, nor any wish to break German power. Even 
now, we have no enmity to the German people. The 
leading political thinkers and historians of England 
had given hearty sympathy to the efforts made by the 
German people (from 1815 to 1866 and 1870) to 
attain political unity, as they had sympathized with the 
parallel efforts of the Italians. 

The two peoples, German and British, were of kin- 
dred race, and linked by many ties. In both countries 
there were doubtless some persons who desired war, 
and whose writings, apparently designed to provoke it, 
did much to misrepresent the general national senti- 
ment. But these persons were, as I believe, a small 
minority in both countries. 

So far as Britain was concerned, it was the invasion 
of Belgium that arrested all efforts to avert war, and 
made even the best friends of peace join in holding that 
the duty of fulfilling their treaty obligations to a weak 
State was paramount to every other consideration. 
I return to the doctrines set forth by General von 

1 [A clear and strong light has recently been thrown upon the circumstances 
preceding the outbreak ol the war by the recently published memorandum of 
Prince Llchnowsky, who was then German Ambassador in London. They 
fully vindicate the motives and action in those critical days of Sir Edward 
Grey, who was then Foreign Secretary. — Oct. 1918.] 



r NEUTRAL NATIONS 7 

Bernhardi, and apparently accepted by the military 
caste to which he belongs. Briefly summed up, they 
are as follows. His own words are used, except when 
it becomes necessary to abridge a lengthened argu- 
ment: 

War is in itself a good thing. " It is a biological 
necessity of the first importance " (p. 18). 

" The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessings of 
war, as an indispensable and stimulating law of develop- 
ment must be repeatedly emphasized " (p. 37). 

" War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of 
culture and power." 

" Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detri- 
mental as soon as they influence politics" (p. 28). 

" Fortunately these efforts can never attain their 
ultimate objects in a world bristling with arms, where 
a healthy egotism still directs the policy of most coun- 
tries. k God will see to it,' says Treitschke, ' that 
war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the human 
race ' " (p. 36). 

" Efforts directed towards the abolition of war are 
not only foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must 
be stigmatized as unworthy of the human race " (p. 

34)- 

Courts of arbitration are pernicious delusions. 

" The whole idea represents a presumptuous encroach- 
ment on the natural laws of development which can 
only lead to the most disastrous consequences for 
humanity generally" (p. 34). 

" The maintenance of peace never can be or may be 
the goal of a policy" (p. 25). 

" Efforts for peace would, if they attained their goal, 
lead to general degeneration, as happens everywhere 
in Nature, where the struggle for existence is elimi- 
nated " (p. 35). 



8 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

Huge armaments are in themselves desirable. 
" They are the most necessary precondition of our 
national health " (p. n). 

" The end all and be all of a State is Power, and 
he who is not man enough to look this truth in the 
face should not meddle with politics " (quoted from 
Treitschke Politik) (p. 45). 

" The State's highest moral duty is to increase its 
power " (pp. 45-6). 

" The State is justified in making conquests when- 
ever its own advantage seems to require additional 
territory " (p. 46). 

" Self-preservation is the State's highest ideal," and 
justifies whatever action it may take, if that action be 
conducive to the end. 

The State is the sole judge of the morality of its 
own action. It is, in fact, above morality, or, in other 
words, Whatever is necessary is moral. 

" Recognized rights (i.e. treaty rights) are never 
absolute rights; they are of human origin, and there- 
fore imperfect and variable. There are conditions in 
which they do not correspond to the actual truth of 
things ; in this case the infringement of the right appears 
morally justified " (p. 49) . In fact, the State is a law 
to itself. 

" Every sovereign State has the undoubted right to 
declare war at its pleasure, and is consequently entitled 
to repudiate its treaties" (Treitschke). 

" Weak nations have not the same right to live as 
the powerful and vigorous nation" (p. 34). 

" Any action in favour of collective humanity outside 
the limits of the State and nationality is impossible " 
(p. 25). 

These are startling propositions, though propounded 
as practically axiomatic. They are not new, for 



i NEUTRAL NATIONS 9 

twenty-two centuries ago the sophist Thrasymachus in 
Plato's Republic argued (Socrates refuting him) that 
Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the 
Stronger, i.e. Might is Right. 1 

The most startling among them is the denial that 
there are any duties owed by the State to Humanity, 
except that of imposing its own superior civilization 
upon as large a part of humanity as possible, and the 
denial of the duty of observing treaties. Treaties are 
only so much paper. 2 

To modern German writers the State is a much more 
tremendous entity than it is to Englishmen or Ameri- 
cans. It is a supreme power with a sort of mystic 
sanctity, a power conceived of, as it were, self-created, 
a force altogether distinct from, and superior to, the 
persons who compose it. 

But a State is 2 after all, only so many individuals 
organized undei a Government. It is no wiser, no 
more righteous than the human beings of whom it 
consists, and whom it sets up to govern it. 

Has the State, then, no morality, no responsibility? 

If it is right for persons united as citizens into a 
State to rob and murder for their collective advantage 
by their collective power, why should it be wicked for 
the citizens as individuals to do so? Does their moral 
responsibility cease when and because they act together? 
Most legal systems hold that there are acts which one 
man may lawfully do which become unlawful if done 
by a number of men conspiring together. But now it 
would seem that what would be a crime in persons as 

1 Plato lays down that the end for which a State exists is Justice. 

2 There are, of course, cases in which a treaty may become obsolete by a 
complete change in the conditions under which it was made, as the treaties of 
Vienna of 1815 had become obsolete sixty years afterwards. But the case of 
Belgium was not such a case, nor can so-called " military necessity " ever 
justify violation. The Hague Convention of 1907 expressly provides that bel- 
ligerents must respect neutral territory. 



io ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

individuals is high policy for those persons united in a 
State. 1 

Is there no such thing as a common humanity? Are 
there no duties owed to it? Is there none of that 
" decent respect to the opinion of mankind " which the 
framers of the Declaration of Independence recog- 
nized; no sense that even the greatest States are amen- 
able to the sentiment of the civilized world? 

Let us see how these doctrines affect the smaller 
and weaker States which have hitherto lived in com- 
parative security beside the Great Powers. 

They will be absolutely at the mercy of the stronger. 
Even if protected by treaties guaranteeing their neu- 
trality and independence they will not be safe, for treaty 
obligations are worthless " when they do not corre- 
spond to facts," i.e. when the strong Power finds that 
they stand in its way. Its interests are paramount. 

If a State has valuable minerals, as Sweden has iron, 
and Belgium coal, and Rumania oil, or if it has abun- 
dance of water-power, like Norway, Sweden, and 
Switzerland, or if it holds the mouth of a navigable 
river the upper course of which belongs to another 
nation, the great State may conquer and annex that 
small State as soon as it finds that it needs the minerals, 
or the water-power, or the river mouth. 

It has the Power, and Power gives Right. The 
interests, the sentiments, the patriotism and love of 
independence of the small people go for nothing. 

Civilization has turned back upon itself, culture is 
to expand its domain by barbaric force. Governments 
derive their authority, not from the consent of the 

l General Bernhardi (following Treitschke) refers approvingly to Machiavelli 
as " the first who declared that the keynote of every policy was the advance- 
ment of power." The Florentine, however, was not the preacher of doctrines 
with which he sought, like the General, to edify his contemporaries. He 
merely took his Italian world as he saw it. He did not attempt to buttress his 
maxims by false philosophy, false history, and false science. 



, NEUTRAL NATIONS n 

governed, but from the weapons of the conqueror. 

Law and morality between nations have vanished. 
Herodotus tells us that the Scythians worshipped as 
their God a naked sword. That is the deity to be 
installed in the place once held by the God of Christi- 
anity, the God of righteousness and mercy. 

States, mostly despotic States, have sometimes ap- 
plied parts of this system of doctrine, but none has pro- 
claimed it. The Romans, conquerors of the world, 
were not a scrupulous people, but even they stopped 
short of these principles. Certainly they never set 
them up as an ideal. Neither did those magnificent 
Saxon and Swabian Emperors of the Middle Ages 
whose fame General von Bernhardi is fond of recall- 
ing. They did not enter Italy as conquerors, claiming 
her by the right of the strongest. They came on the 
faith of a legal title, which, however fantastic it may 
seem to us to-day, the Italians themselves — and, in- 
deed, the whole of Latin Christendom — admitted. 
Dante, the greatest and most patriotic of Italians, wel- 
comed the Germanic Emperor Henry the Seventh into 
Italy, and wrote a famous book to prove his claims, 
vindicating them on the ground that he, as the heir of 
Rome, stood for Law and Right and Peace. The 
noblest title which those Emperors chose to bear was 
that of Imperator Pacificus, bestowed upon the first 
of them when he was crowned in Rome in A.D. 800. In 
the Middle Ages, when men were always fighting, they 
appreciated the blessings of war much less than does 
General Bernhardi, and they valued peace, not war, as 
a means to civilization and culture. They had not 
learnt in the school of Treitschke that peace means 
decadence and war is the true civilizing influence. 

The doctrines above stated are (as I have tried to 
point out) well calculated to alarm the small States 



12 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

which prize their liberty and their individuality, and 
have been thriving under the safeguard of treaties. 
But there are also other considerations affecting those 
States which ought to appeal to men in all countries, to 
strong nations as well as weak nations. 

The small States, whose absorption is now threat- 
ened, have been potent and useful — perhaps the most 
potent and useful — factors in the advance of civiliza- 
tion. It is in them and by them that most of what is 
most precious in religion, in philosophy, in literature, 
in science, and in art has been produced. 

The first great thoughts that brought man into a true 
relation with God came from a tiny people, inhabiting 
a country smaller than Denmark. The religions of 
mighty Babylon and populous Egypt have vanished: 
the religion of Israel remains in its earlier as well as in 
that later form which has overspread the world. 

The Greeks were a small people, not united in one 
great State, but scattered over coasts and among hills 
irf petty city communities, each with its own life, slender 
in numbers, but eager, versatile, intense. They gave 
us the richest, the most varied, and the most stimulat- 
ing of all literatures. 

When poetry and art reappeared, after the long 
night of the Dark Ages, their most splendid blossoms 
flowered in the small republics of Italy. 

In modern Europe what do we not owe to little 
Switzerland, lighting the torch of freedom 600 years 
ago, and keeping it alight through all the long centuries 
when despotic monarchies held the rest of the European 
Continent; and what to free Holland, with her great 
men of learning and her painters surpassing those of 
all other countries save Italy? 

So the small Scandinavian nations have given to the 
world-famous men of science, from Linnaeus down- 



x NEUTRAL NATIONS 13 

wards, poets like Tegner and Bjornson, scholars like 
Madvig, dauntless explorers like Fridtjof Nansen. 
England had, in the age of Shakespeare, Bacon, and 
Milton, a population little larger than that of Bulgaria 
to-day. The United States, in the days of Washing- 
ton and Franklin and Jefferson and Hamilton and 
Marshall, counted fewer inhabitants than Denmark or 
Greece. 

In the two most brilliant generations of German 
literature and thought, the age of Kant and Lessing 
and Goethe, of Hegel and Beethoven and Schiller and 
Fichte, there was no real German State at all, but a 
congeries of principalities and free cities, independent 
centres of intellectual life, in which letters and science 
produced a richer crop than the two succeeding genera- 
tions have raised, just as Britain, also, with eight times 
the population of the year 1600, has had no more 
Shakespeares or Miltons. 

No notion is more palpably contradicted by history 
than that relied on by the school to which General 
Bernhardi belongs, that " culture " — literary, scientific, 
and artistic — flourishes best in great military States. 
The decay of art and literature in the Roman World 
began just when Rome's military power had made that 
world one great and ordered State. The opposite view 
would be much nearer the truth; though one must ad- 
mit that no general theory regarding the relations of 
art and letters to Governments and political conditions 
has ever yet been proved to be sound. 1 

The world is already too uniform, and is becoming 
more uniform every day. A few leading languages, a 

1 General Bernliardi's knowledge of current history may be estimated by the 
fact that he assumes fi) that trade rivalry makes a war probable between 
Great Britain and the United States! (2) that be believes the Indian princes 
and peoples likely to revolt against Britain should she be involved in war!! and 
(3) that he expects her self-governing Colonies to take such an opportunity of 
severing their connection with her!!! 



14 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

few forms of civilization, a few types of character, are 
spreading out from the seven or eight greatest States 
and extinguishing the weaker languages, forms, and 
types. 

Although the great States are stronger and more 
populous, their peoples are not necessarily more gifted, 
and the extinction of the minor languages and types 
would be a misfortune for the world's future develop- 
ment. 

We may not be able to arrest the forces which seem 
to be making for that extinction, but we certainly ought 
not to strengthen them. Rather we ought to maintain 
and defend the smaller States, and to favour the rise 
and growth of new peoples. Not merely because they 
were delivered from tyranny of Sultans like Abdul 
Hamid did the intellect of Europe welcome the suc- 
cessively won liberations of Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, 
and Montenegro; it was also in the hope that those 
countries would in time develop out of their present 
relatively crude conditions new types of culture, new 
centres of productive intellectual life. 

General Bernhardi invokes History, the ultimate 
court of appeal. He appeals to Caesar. To Caesar 
let him go. As Schiller wrote: Die Weltgeschichte 
ist das Weltgericht?- 

History declares that no nation, however great, is 
entitled to try to impose its type of civilization on 
others. No race, not even the Teutonic or the Anglo- 
Saxon, is entitled to claim the leadership of humanity. 
Each people has in its time contributed something that 
was distinctively its own, and the world is far richer 
thereby than if any one race, however gifted, had es- 
tablished a permanent ascendancy. 

We of the English-speaking race do not claim for 

1 World History is the World-tribunal. 



i NEUTRAL NATIONS 15 

ourselves, any more than we admit in others, any right 
to dominate by force or to impose our own type of 
civilization on less powerful races. Perhaps we have 
not that assured conviction of its superiority which the 
school of General Bernhardi expresses for the Teutons 
of North Germany. We know how much we owe, 
even within our own islands, to the Celtic race. And 
though we must admit that peoples of Anglo-Saxon 
stock have, like others, made some mistakes and some- 
times abused their strength, let it be remembered what 
have been the latest acts they have done abroad. 

The United States have twice withdrawn their troops 
from Cuba, which they could easily have retained. 
They have resisted all temptations to annex any part of 
the territories of Mexico, in which the lives and prop- 
erty of their citizens were for three years in constant 
danger. So Britain also restored in 1906-7 the am- 
plest self-government to the two South African Re- 
publics, which had been in arms against her thirteen 
years ago (having already agreed to the maintenance 
on equal terms of the Dutch language) , and the citizens 
of those Republics have now spontaneously come for- 
ward to support her by arms, under the gallant leader 
who then commanded the Boer forces. Nor should 
we forget that one reason why the princes of India 
have rallied so promptly and heartily to Britain in this 
war is because for many years past we have avoided 
annexing the territories of those princes, allowing them 
to adopt heirs when successors of their own families 
failed, and leaving to them as much as possible of the 
ordinary functions of government. 

It is only vulgar minds that mistake bigness for 
greatness, for greatness is of the Soul, not of the Body. 
In the judgment which history will hereafter pass upon 
the forty centuries of recorded progress towards civili- 



1 6 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

zation that now lie behind us, what are the tests it will 
apply to determine the true greatness of a people? 

Not population, not territory, not wealth, not mili- 
tary rjower. Rather will history ask : What examples 
of lofty character and unselfish devotion to honour and 
duty has a people given? What has it done to in- 
crease the volume of knowledge? What thoughts and 
what ideals of permanent value and unexhausted fer- 
tility has it bequeathed to mankind? What works has 
it produced in poetry, music, and the other arts to be 
an unfailing source of enjoyment to posterity? 

The smaller peoples need not fear the application of 
such tests. 

The world advances not, as the Bernhardi school 
suppose, only or even mainly by fighting. It advances 
mainly by Thinking and by a process of reciprocal 
teaching and learning, by a continuous and unconscious 
cooperation of all its strongest and finest minds. 

Each race — Hellenic and Italic, Celtic and Teu- 
tonic, Iberian and Slavonic — has something to give, 
each something to learn; and when their blood is blent 
the mixed stock may combine the gifts of both. 

The most progressive races have been those who 
combined willingness to learn with a strength which 
enabled them to receive without loss to their own qual- 
ity, retaining their primal vigour, but entering into the 
labours of others, as the Teutons who settled within the 
dominions of Rome profited by the lessons and exam- 
ples of the old civilization. 

Let me disclaim once more before I close any inten- 
tion to attribute to the German people the principles 
set forth by the school of Treitschke and Bernhardi, 
their hatred of peace and arbitration, their disregard 
of treaty obligations, their scorn for the weaker peoples. 

We in England would feel an even deeper sadness 



i NEUTRAL NATIONS 17 

than weighs upon us now if we could suppose that such 
principles had been embraced by a nation whose think- 
ers have done so much for human progress and who 
have produced so many shining examples of Christian 
saintliness. 

But when those principles have been ostentatiously 
proclaimed, when a peaceful neutral country which the 
other belligerent had undertaken to respect has been 
invaded and treated as Belgium has been treated, and 
when attempts are made to justify these deeds as inci- 
dental to a campaign for civilization and culture, it 
becomes necessary to point out how untrue and how 
pernicious such principles are. 

What are the teachings of history, history to which 
General Bernhardi is fond of appealing? That war 
has been the constant handmaid of tyranny and the 
source of more than half the miseries of man. That 
although some wars have been necessary, and have 
given occasion for the display of splendid heroism — 
wars of defence against aggression, or to succour the 
oppressed — most wars have been needless or unjust. 
That the mark of an advancing civilization has been the 
substitution of friendship for hatred and of peaceful 
for warlike ideals. That small peoples have done and 
can do as much for the common good of humanity as 
large peoples. That treaties must be observed, for 
what are they but records of national faith solemnly 
pledged, and what could bring mankind more surely 
and swiftly back to that reign of violence and terror 
from which it has been slowly rising for the last ten 
centuries than a destruction of trust in the plighted faith 
of nations? 

No event has brought out that essential unity which 
now exists in the world so forcibly as this war has done, 
for no event has ever so affected every part of the 



1 8 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap.i 

world. Four continents are involved — the whole of 
the Old World — and the New World suffers griev- 
ously in its trade, industry, and finance. Thus the 
whole world is interested in preventing the recurrence 
of such a calamity; and there is a general feeling 
throughout the world that an effort must be made to 
remove the causes which have brought it upon us. 

We are told that armaments must be reduced, that 
the baleful spirit of militarism must be quenched, that 
the peoples must everywhere be admitted to a fuller 
share in the control of foreign policy, that efforts must 
be made to establish a sort of League of Concord — 
some system of international relations and reciprocal 
peace alliances by which the weaker nations may be 
protected, and under which differences between nations 
may be adjusted by courts of arbitration and concilia- 
tion of wider scope than those that now exist. 

All these things are desirable. All nations, and, 
most of all, the weaker nations, ought to desire them. 
But no scheme for preventing future wars will have any 
chance of success unless it rests upon the assurance 
that the States which enter into it will loyally and stead- 
fastly abide by it, and that each and all of them will 
join in coercing by their overwhelming united strength 
any State which may disregard the obligations it has 
undertaken. 

The faith of treaties is the only solid foundation on 
which a Temple of Peace can be built up. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ATTITUDE OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE PRESENT WAR 

We in Britain who respect and value the opinion of the 
free neutral peoples of Europe and America cannot but 
desire that those peoples should be duly informed of the 
way in which we regard the circumstances and the pos- 
sible results of the present conflict. The pages which 
follow have been written in compliance with a request 
from one of those free countries, Switzerland, but 
what has been set down to be read by its people may 
equally well be addressed to other neutrals. I speak 
here with no more authority than is possessed by any 
private citizen of my country who has had a long ex- 
perience of public affairs, and my only wish is to ex- 
press what I believe to be its general sentiments. Other 
writers would doubtless convey those sentiments in 
somewhat different language, but I think they would do 
so to much the same general effect, for the British 
Nation is at this crisis united in its views and pur- 
poses to an extent almost unprecedented in its history. 

I shall not enter into the circumstances which brought 
about the war, for these have been often stated officially 
and can be readily understood from documents already 
published. The evidence contained in those documents 
ought, it seems to me, to be quite convincing to any 
impartial mind. 1 All that need be said here is that the 

1 It was convincing from the first. But if any further proof be needed the 
spring of 1918 brought an unexpected and most effective confirmation in the 
form of a secret memorandum written by Prince Lichnowski (German Am- 

19 



20 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

British nation did most assuredly neither desire nor 
contemplate war. There was no hostility to Germany 
except among a very few persons who thought she was 
already planning to attack us. The notion which has 
been assiduously propagated by the German Govern- 
ment, that England desired to bring about war because 
she feared the commercial competition of Germany and 
hoped to destroy German productive industry and mer- 
cantile prosperity, is absolutely untrue and without the 
slightest foundation. It is indeed an absurd sugges- 
tion, for every man of sense knew that German trade 
had brought more advantage to our trading classes than 
any damage German competition had been doing to 
them. England had far more to lose than to gain by 
war. Germany was her best foreign customer, taking 
more goods from her than did any other foreign coun- 
try. It was plain to the meanest understanding that a 
war would involve England in pecuniary losses which 

bassador in London in 1912-14), and published without his knowledge or con- 
sent. In it the ex-Ambassador, who had been conducting negotiations between 
his country and Britain over various questions affecting their relations, bears 
the clearest and strongest testimony to the friendly spirit in which the British 
Government met the wishes of Germany. Large concessions, so large that 
they seem now, with our fuller knowledge of German plans, too generous, 
were made regarding the assignment of regions in Africa as spheres of German 
influence, and as respects the Bagdad railway and Mesopotamia as far as EI 
Basra. Sir Edward Grey, he declares, was sincerely anxious for friendship 
between the countries, and did his utmost, up to the last moments in July 
and August, 19 14, to avert war. This account of Sir Edward's good-will is 
confirmed by Herr von Jagow, who was then Foreign Secretary in Germany. 
The Memorandum also explicitly contradicts the notion, propagated in Germany, 
that commercial jealousy had made British mercantile men disposed to war, 
" It was precisely in commercial circles," says Lichnowski, " that I found the 
liveliest disposition to establish good relations [with Germany] and to pro- 
mote common economic interests." 

Another revelation of high significance is contained in the account given by 
Mr. Morgenthau, lately American Ambassador at Constantinople (see his ar- 
ticles in The World's Work for May and June 1918), of the description given 
to him by Baron von Wangenheim (till his recent death, German Ambassador 
to Turkey) of the secret meeting at Potsdam on July 5, 1914, at which the 
German Emperor asked the heads of the Army, of the Navy, and of the great 
financial establishments of Germany whether they were all prepared for the 
approaching war. This meeting is referred to in Prince Lichnowski's Memor- 
andum also, and there seems to be no doubt that war was then virtually decided 
upon. 



xi GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 21 

must far exceed, and had within the first year of war 
far exceeded, any pecuniary gain her traders could 
possibly have made by the crippling of German trade 
for many a year to come. One of the reasons why 
many Englishmen thought that there was no likelihood 
of a war between the two countries was because they 
believed that both countries knew what frightful losses 
to each the war would bring. Unluckily they did not 
know the mind and temper of the class that was ruling 
Germany. Moreover, the fact that Britain had not 
prepared herself for a land war shows how little she 
expected it. She had an army very small in comparison 
with those of the Continental powers, and no store of 
guns or shell comparable to theirs; so, when the war 
broke out — Belgium invaded, France threatened with 
destruction — she found herself suddenly obliged to 
raise a large force by voluntary enlistment at short no- 
tice. Few supposed that the response of the people 
would have been so general and so hearty. The re- 
sponse came because the nation was united as it had 
never been united before in support of any war. That 
which united it at the first moment was the invasion of 
Belgium; and that which has done most to keep it 
united and to stimulate it to exertions hitherto undreamt 
of has been popular indignation at the methods by 
which the German Government has conducted hostili- 
ties by land and by sea. 

The German Government has alleged that the British 
Fleet had been mobilized with a view to war. That is 
absolutely untrue. What happened was this. The 
Fleet had been going through its usual summer man- 
oeuvres. Just as these manoeuvres were coming to an 
end, a threatening war cloud unexpectedly arose out of 
a blue sky. Most naturally, the ships which would in 
the usual course have been dispersed to their accus- 



22 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

tomed peace stations were commanded not to disperse 
until further orders were received. There was in this 
no evidence of any purpose to embark in war, for to 
keep the Fleet together was in the circumstances the 
obvious and only prudent course. 

Now let me try to state what are the principles which 
animate the British people, making them believe they 
have a righteous cause, and inducing them, because they 
so believe, to prosecute the war with their utmost 
energy. 

There is a familiar expression which we use in Eng- 
land to sum up the position and aims of a nation. It is, 
" What does the nation ' stand for ' ? " What are the 
principles and the interests which prescribe its course? 
What are the ends, over and above its own welfare, 
which it seeks to promote? What is the nature of the 
mission with which it feels itself charged? What are 
the ideals which it would like to see prevailing through- 
out the world? 

There are five of these principles or aims or ideals 
which I will here set forth, because they stand out con- 
spicuously in the present crisis, though they have all 
been more or less parts of the settled policy of Britain. 

I. The first of these five is Liberty. 

England and Switzerland have been the two modern 
countries in which Liberty first took tangible form in 
equal laws and in the institutions of self-government. 
Every lover of poetry remembers the lines in which 
Wordsworth joins these lands as the ancient homes of 
freedom : 

Two Voices are there, one is of the Sea, 
One of the Mountains, each a mighty Voice. 

For a long time it was in these two countries alone that 



ii GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 23 

liberty maintained its life, while elsewhere feudal oli- 
garchies were being superseded by despotic monarchies. 
After a time Holland followed, and the three peoples 
of the Scandinavian North, kindred to us in blood, 
have followed likewise. 

In England Liberty appeared from early days in a 
recognition of the right of the citizen to be protected 
against arbitrary power and to bear his share in the 
work of governing his own community. It is from 
Great Britain that other European countries whose po- 
litical condition had, from the end of the Middle Ages 
down to the end of the eighteenth century, been un- 
favourable to freedom, drew, in that and the following 
century, their examples of a Government which could be 
united and efficient and yet popular, strong to defend 
itself against attack, and yet respectful of the rights 
of its own members. The British Constitution has 
been the model whence most of the countries that have 
within recent times adopted constitutional government 
have drawn their institutions. Britain has herself dur- 
ing the last eighty years made her constitution more 
and more truly popular. It is now as democratic as 
that of any other European State, and in their dealings 
with other countries, the British people have shown a 
constant sympathy with freedom. They showed it 
early in the nineteenth century to Spanish constitutional 
reformers and to Greek insurgents against Turkish 
tyranny. They showed it to Switzerland when they 
foiled (in 1847) tne attempt of Metternich to inter- 
fere with her independence. They have shown it in 
other ways within recent years. Britain has given free 
Governments to all those of her colonies in which there 
is a population of European origin capable of using 
them, and this has confirmed the attachment to herself 
of those colonies. In Canada two insurrections broke 



24 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

out in 1837-38, insignificant, and easily suppressed. 
But the warning they gave in revealing local discontent 
with the existing system was not lost. A new system 
was set up, discontent quickly disappeared, and some 
of those who had been in arms against the British 
Crown were before long its loyal supporters, a few of 
them even among its Ministers. This became the be- 
ginning of that policy of Dominion Self-Government 
which has so powerfully cemented the different parts 
of what has been well called the Union of British Com- 
monwealths. In 1907-8, only six years after a war 
with the two Dutch Republics of South Africa, which 
had ended by a treaty that brought them into the ter- 
ritories of Britain, she restored self-government to the 
Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and they soon 
afterwards became members of the new autonomous 
Confederation called the Union of South Africa, side 
by side with the old British colonies of the Cape and 
Natal. The first Prime Minister of that Union was 
General Louis Botha, who had been Commander-in- 
Chief of the Boer forces in their war with Britain. 
What has been the result? When the present war 
broke out the German Government, which had long 
been planning to induce the Transvaal and the Orange 
Free State to break away from Britain, found to 
their astonishment that the vast majority of the South 
African Boers stood heartily by her. General 
Botha took command of the Union armies, and de- 
feated the German forces in the German colony of 
South- West Africa without any assistance from British 
troops. 

So in German East Africa General Smuts, who had 
been one of the most efficient leaders of the Boer forces 
in the South African War of 1 899-1901, was placed in 
command of the army which drove the German native 



ii GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 25 

and white troops out of that region into Portuguese 
territory and relieved the inhabitants from the harsh- 
ness of German rule. He has now been for some time 
a trusted and most valuable member of the British 
War Cabinet. So much for South African loyalty to 
the Empire. As regards the other self-governing Do- 
minions, which the Germans expected to take the op- 
portunity this war would have afforded of severing their 
connection with the Mother Country, every one knows 
with what ardour and promptitude they placed all their 
resources at the service of the common cause and with 
what valour their soldiers have fought for it. These 
are the fruits of those principles of liberty by which 
British policy has been guided since those great colonies 
grew up. 

The free citizens of neutral nations ought not to for- 
get that the principles of freedom are involved in the 
present war. More and more as the struggle goes on 
has the conduct of the German statesmen and soldiers 
shown that a Government which spurns Right and rests 
upon Force is of necessity the enemy of every govern- 
ment that rests upon the will of the people, and will try 
to crush or fetter liberty wherever it has the chance. 
Both cannot live side by side. This is the meaning of 
President Wilson's dictum that " the world must be 
made safe for democracy." Britain, having stood for 
liberty through many centuries, naturally became its 
champion in this decisive hour. The United States, 
the eldest-born child of the liberty which Englishmen 
had won for themselves before the separation of 1776, 
has entered the war from like motives, and is waging 
it as a crusade. 

Political liberty, itself founded on a recognition of 
the worth of the individual man, has in England borne 
its appropriate fruit in creating a respect for the rights 



26 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

of every human being of whatever race. England led 
the way in the abolition of negro slavery. More than 
eighty years ago her Parliament voted sums, enormous 
for those days, to liberate slaves in the British colonies. 
The extinction of the slave trade was due to her mis- 
sionaries, among whom the honoured name of Living- 
stone stands first, to her philanthropists at home, to the 
energy of her naval officers on the Atlantic and Indian 
Oceans. For the last three generations her Govern- 
ment has everywhere sought to secure the rights and 
promote the welfare of the native races under her 
control. Her record is not perfect, for there have now 
and then been errors, or lapses from the normal stand- 
ard she prescribed for herself. But compare her long 
record in this respect with the short but scandalous rec- 
ord of oppression which the German administrators 
have made for themselves in South-West Africa, in 
East Africa, and in Togoland. These have been the 
fruits of Liberty as Britain has understood it and prac- 
tised it, even before her own Government had taken a 
democratic form : and they have been profitable for the 
world. 

II. Britain stands for the principle of Nationality. 
She has always given her sympathy to the efforts of a 
people restless under a foreign dominion to deliver 
themselves from the stranger and to be ruled by a Gov- 
ernment of their own. The efforts of Greece from 
1820 till her liberation from the Turks, the efforts of 
Italy to shake off the hated yoke of Austria and attain 
national unity under an Italian King found their warm- 
est support in England. English Liberals gave their 
sympathy to national movements in Hungary and Po- 
land. Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, Kossuth and Deak 
were heroes to the British people as Kosciuzko had 
been to an earlier generation. They gave that sym- 



a GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 27 

pathy also to the German movement for national unity 
from 1848 to 1870, for in those days that movement 
was led by German Liberals of lofty aims who did not 
desire, as the recent rulers of Germany have desired, 
to make their national strength a menace to the peace 
and security of their neighbours. In India, England 
has long ceased to absorb into her dominions the native 
States, and has been seeking only to guide the rulers 
of those States into the paths of just and humane ad- 
ministration, while leaving their internal affairs to their 
own native Governments. It was not possible to ex- 
tend a representative system resembling those of Eng- 
land herself to the numerous races that compose the 
Indian population, because those races were not yet 
fit to work such a system. A firm and impartial hand 
is indeed needed to keep the peace among them. But 
the British Government in India regards, and has long 
regarded, its power as a trust to be used for the benefit 
of the people, and in recent years efforts have been 
made to associate the people more and more with the 
work of the higher branches of administration and 
legislation. Hindu and Musulman judges sit beside 
European judges in the highest Courts, while the vast 
mass of local administration is conducted by native 
officials and native magistrates. Now (in 191 8) a 
scheme of far-reaching change has been framed, de- 
signed to create representative institutions over nearly 
the whole of British India, and under these the welfare 
of the country will be more and more in native hands. 
No tribute or revenue of any kind has for very many 
years past been drawn by England from India, and, 
as every one knows, neither has it been levied from 
any of those colonies which the Home Government 
controls. The good results of this policy have been 
seen in the steady increase of the confidence and good- 



28 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

will of the native rulers and aristocracy of India to 
the British Government, so that when the present war 
broke out all those rulers at once offered military aid. 
Large Indian forces gladly came to fight, and fought 
most gallantly, in Mesopotamia and in Palestine, where 
they were opposed to a Muslim enemy, as well as be- 
side the British forces in France. 

I do not claim that these successes attained by British 
ideas and methods are due to any innate and peculiar 
merits of British character. They may be largely 
ascribed to the fact that the insular position and the 
political and social conditions of England enabled her, 
earlier than most other peoples, both to attain con- 
stitutional liberty and to learn to love it and trust it. 
She has had long experience, and has profited by ex- 
perience. She has had cause to see how much better 
it is to govern by justice and in a fair and generous 
spirit than to rely on brute force. Once in her history, 
140 years ago, she lost the North American Colonies 
because, in days when British freedom was less firmly 
established than it is now, a narrow-minded and ob- 
stinate King induced his Government to treat those 
colonies with unwise harshness. She has never forgot- 
ten that lesson, and has more and more come to see 
that freedom and nationality are a surer basis for con- 
tentment and loyalty than is the application of military 
power. Compare with the happy results that have 
followed the instances I have mentioned of respect for 
liberty and national sentiment in the cases of South 
Africa and India, as well as in the self-governing Do- 
minions, the results in North Sleswig, in Posen, in 
Alsace-Lorraine, of the opposite policy of force sternly 
applied by Prussian statesmen and soldiers. 

III. Britain stands for the maintenance of treaty 
obligations and of those rights of the smaller nations 



ii GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 29 

which rest upon such obligations. The circumstances 
of the present war, which saw a peaceful neutral coun- 
try suddenly attacked by a Power that had itself 
solemnly guaranteed the neutrality of its territory, 
summoned England to stand up for the defence of those 
rights and obligations, for she felt that the good faith 
of treaties is the only foundation on which peace be- 
tween nations can rest, and is, especially, the only guar- 
antee for the security of those which do not maintain 
large armies. We recognize the value of the smaller 
States, knowing what they have done for the progress 
of mankind, grateful for the examples set by many of 
them of national heroism and of achievements in sci- 
ence, literature, and art. So far from desiring to see 
the smaller peoples absorbed into the larger, as Ger- 
man theorists appear to wish, we believe that the world 
would profit if there were in it a greater number of 
small peoples, each developing its own type of char- 
acter and its own forms of thought and art. 

Both these principles — the observance of treaties 
and the rights of the smaller neutral States — were 
raised in the sharpest form by the unprovoked invasion 
of Belgium only two days after the German Minister 
at Brussels had lulled the uneasiness of the Belgian 
Government by his pacific assurances. Such conduct 
was a threat to every neutral nation. That which be- 
fell Belgium might have befallen Switzerland or Hol- 
land had Germany decided that it was to her interests 
to attack either of them for the sake of securing a 
passage for her armies. England was obliged to come 
to Belgium's support and fulfil the obligation she had 
herself contracted to defend the neutrality of the coun- 
try unrighteously attacked. When the German armies 
suddenly crossed the Belgian frontier, carrying slaugh- 
ter and destruction in their train, an issue of transcend- 



30 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

ent importance was raised. Can treaties be violated 
with impunity? Is a nation which, trusting to the pro- 
tection of international justice and treaty obligations, 
has not so armed itself as to be able to repel invasion, 
obliged helplessly to submit to see its territory overrun 
and its towns destroyed? If such violence prevails, 
what sense of security can any small nation enjoy? 
Will it not be the helpless prey of some stronger Power, 
whenever that Power finds an interest in pouncing upon 
it? What becomes of the whole fabric of international 
law and international justice? Britain, obliged by 
honour to succour Belgium, thus became the champion 
of international right and of the security of the smaller 
nations. There is nothing she more earnestly desires 
to obtain as a result of this war than that the smaller 
States should be placed for the future in a position of 
safety, in which the guarantees for their independence 
and peace shall be stronger than before, because the 
sanction of the law of nations will have been made more 
effective. 

IV. Britain stands for the regulation of the methods 
of warfare in the interests of humanity, and especially 
for the exemption of non-combatants from the suffer- 
ings and horrors which war brings. Here is another 
issue raised by the present crisis, another conflict of 
opposing principles. In the ancient world, and among 
semi-civilized peoples in more recent times, non-com- 
batant civilians as well as the fighting forces had to 
bear those sufferings. The men were killed, com- 
batants and non-combatants alike, the women and chil- 
dren, if spared, were reduced to slavery. That is what 
the gang which now rules Turkey went on doing all 
through 19 1 5 in Asia Minor and Armenia, on a far 
larger scale than even the massacres perpetrated by 
Abdul Hamid in 1895-96. The snake has shed his 



ii GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 31 

old skin, but he is none the less venomous. This gang 
of ruffians slaughtered the men, enslaved some of the 
women by selling them in open market or seizing them 
for the harem, and drove the rest, with the children, 
out into deserts to perish from hunger. The Turkish 
Government is, of course, a thoroughly barbarous Gov- 
ernment, and what surprises those who know its history 
is not the spirit it has again displayed, but the con- 
nivance or encouragement of the nominally Christian 
Government of Germany. But in civilized Europe 
Christian nations have, during the last few centuries, 
softened the conduct of war by agreeing to respect the 
lives and property of innocent non-combatants, and 
thus, although the scale of modern wars has been 
greater, less misery has been inflicted on inhabitants of 
invaded territories. Their sufferings were less in the 
eighteenth century than in the seventeenth, and less in 
the nineteenth than in the eighteenth. In the war of 
1870—71 the German troops, though addicted to the 
plunder of houses and sometimes guilty of excesses, 
seem on the whole to have behaved better in France 
than an invading force had usually behaved in similar 
circumstances. Now, however, in this present war, 
the German military and naval commanders have taken 
a long step backwards towards barbarism. Innocent 
non-combatants have been slaughtered by thousands 
in Belgium and in France, and the only excuse offered 
(for the facts of the slaughter are practically admit- 
ted) is that German troops have sometimes been fired 
at by civilians. Now it is true that any civilian who 
takes up arms without observing the rules prescribed 
for civilian resistance, which custom has established 
and the Hague Convention has sanctioned, is liable to 
be shot. The rules of war permit that. But it is 
contrary to the rules of war, as well as to common 



32 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

justice and humanity, to kill a civilian who has not him- 
self sought to harm an invading force. 

German air-war has been conducted with equal in- 
humanity. Bombs have during three years been 
dropped upon undefended towns and quiet country 
villages in eastern and Central England, on places 
where there are no troops, no war factories, no stores 
of ammunition. Very few combatants have suffered, 
and the women and children killed have been far more 
numerous than the male non-combatants. No military 
advantage has been gained by these crimes. They 
have not even frightened the people generally. 

The same retrogression towards barbarism is seen in 
the German conduct of war at sea. It had long been 
the rule and practice of civilized nations that when a 
merchant vessel is destroyed by a ship of war because 
it is impossible to carry the merchant vessel into the 
port of the captor, the crew and the passengers of the 
vessel should be taken off and their lives saved, before 
the vessel is sunk. Common humanity prescribes this, 
but the German submarines have been sinking unarmed 
merchant vessels and drowning their passengers and 
crews without giving them even the opportunity to sur- 
render. 

These facts raise an issue in which the interests of 
all mankind are involved. The German Government 
claims the right to kill the innocent because it suits their 
military interests. We deny this right, as all countries 
ought to deny it. England is contending in this war 
for humanity against cruelty, and she appeals to the 
conscience of all the neutral peoples to give her their 
moral support in this contention. Peoples that are now 
neutral may suffer in future, just as those innocent per- 
sons I have referred to are suffering now by these acts 
of unprecedented barbarity. 



n GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 33 

V. England stands for a Pacific as opposed to a 
Military type of civilization. Her regular army had 
always been small in proportion to her population, and 
very small in comparison with the armies of great Con- 
tinental nations. Although she recognizes that there 
are some countries in which universal service may be 
necessary, and times at which it may be necessary in 
any country, she has preferred to leave her people free 
to follow their civil pursuits, and had raised her army 
by voluntary enlistment. Every stranger who before 
1 9 14 came to England from the European Continent 
was struck by the fact that in the streets of her cities 
there were hardly any soldiers to be seen. Military 
and naval officers have never, as in Germany, formed a 
class by themselves, have never been a political power, 
or exercised political influence. The Cabinet Min- 
isters placed in charge of these two services have al- 
ways been civilian statesmen — not Generals or Ad- 
mirals — until the outbreak of the present war, when, 
for the first time, under the stress of a new emergency, 
a professional soldier of long experience was placed 
at the head of the War Department. England has 
repeatedly sought at European Conferences to bring 
about a reduction of war armaments, as well as to se- 
cure improved rules mitigating the usages of war; 
but has found her efforts baffled by the opposition of 
the German Government. In none of the larger coun- 
tries, except, indeed, in the United States, are the 
people so generally and sincerely attached to peace. 

It may be asked why, if this is so, does England main- 
tain so large a navy. The question deserves an an- 
swer. Her navy is maintained for three reasons. 
The first is, that as her army has been very small she 
is obliged to protect herself by a strong home fleet 
from any risk of invasion. She has never forgotten 



34 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

the lesson of the Napoleonic wars, when it was the 
navy that saved her from the fate which befell so many 
European countries at Napoleon's hands. Were she 
not to keep up this first line of defence at sea, a huge 
army and a huge military expenditure in time of peace 
would be inevitable. The second reason is that as 
England does not produce nearly enough food to sup- 
port her population, she must draw supplies from other 
countries, and would be in danger of starvation if in 
war-time she lost the command of the sea. It is there- 
fore vital to her existence that she should be able to 
secure the unimpeded import of articles of food. And 
the third reason is that England is responsible for the 
defence of the coasts and the commerce of her colonies 
and other foreign possessions, such as India. These 
do not maintain a naval force sufficient for their de- 
fence, and the Mother Country is therefore compelled 
to have a fleet sufficient to guarantee their safety and 
protect their shipping. No other great State has such 
far-reaching liabilities, and, therefore, no other needs 
a navy so large as Britain must maintain. In this pol- 
icy there is no warlike or aggressive spirit, no menace 
to other countries. It is a measure purely of defence, 
costly and burdensome, but borne because her own 
safety and that of her colonies absolutely require it. 
Neither has Britain used her naval strength to inflict 
harm on any other countries. In time of peace she 
has not tried to use it to injure the commerce of her 
chief industrial competitors. No step was ever taken 
to retard the rapid growth of the mercantile marines 
of Germany and Norway, both of which have been 
immensely developed in recent years. The free and 
equal use of ocean highways has, in time of peace, never 
been infringed by her. In time of war she doubtless 
exercises those rights of maritime blockade, search, and 



„ GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 35 

capture which her naval strength enables her to exert. 
But rights of blockade and capture have always been 
exerted by every naval power in war time. They are 
a recognized method of war, and were exerted in the 
American Civil War fifty years ago, in the war of 
France with China, in the war of Chile with Peru, and 
in the more recent war between Japan and Russia. 
They are not rights newly claimed by Britain, and they 
have been exercised with a constant respect for the 
lives of non-combatants. 

Much has been said since the war began about 
" the freedom of the seas." What sense that phrase 
has, or ought to have, I will not venture to enquire. 
No two persons seem to use it in the same sense. In 
the German mouth it seems to mean that no State is to 
possess a navy larger than Germany's. The only ra- 
tional meaning it can have in war time would seem to 
be a rule granting the immunity from capture by war- 
ships to vessels carrying merchandise or passengers 
only. It is an arguable question whether on a balance 
of considerations the right of capture ought or ought not 
to be recognized by international law. Hitherto it 
has been recognized, so the British fleet has put it in 
force against German ships, and always with due hu- 
manity. In peace time, Britain, as already observed, 
has never interfered with the free use of the sea by the 
ships, either armed or unarmed, of any other nation. 

So far from using her sea-power to the prejudice of 
other countries in peace time, and trying by its aid to 
promote her own commercial interests, Britain is the 
only great country which has opened her doors freely 
to the commerce of every other country. More than 
sixty years ago she adopted, and has ever since con- 
sistently practised, the policy of free trade. She im- 
poses upon imports no duties intended to protect her 



36 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

own agriculture or her own manufactures. She gives 
no advantages to her own shipping in her own ports, 
she pays no bounties to her own shipping, she allows 
even coasting trade between her own ports to be open 
on equal terms to the ships of all nations. A Dutch or 
Swedish or Norwegian vessel may trade from New- 
castle to London as freely as a British vessel. And 
this free trade policy has been carried out consistently 
in all the British colonial possessions. Neither in In- 
dia, nor in those British colonies whose tariffs are con- 
trolled by the Mother Country, are duties imposed 
upon foreign imports, except for the purpose of raising 
revenue. Such self-governing Dominions as Canada 
and Australia have control of their own tariffs and 
impose what duties they please — even against the 
Mother Country; but that is a part of the self-govern- 
ment which these Dominions have long enjoyed. 

The policy of free trade has been supported, and is 
valued, in Britain not only on economic grounds, but 
also because it is deemed to promote international 
peace. Richard Cobden, the first and most powerful 
champion in Parliament of that policy, saw in this 
tendency its highest value. It is only of that aspect of 
the subject that I speak here, because its domestic as- 
pects raise controversies which I do not presume to 
enter. He thought that it would so link the nations 
together, helping them to know one another, enriching 
them all, and making each interested in the prosperity 
of the other, each being both a producer and a con- 
sumer, each supplying the other's needs and profiting 
by the exchange, that each and all would be reluctant 
to break the general peace. He was unquestionably 
right in principle, although the commercial interests of 
Germany in maintaining her trade with England were 
not strong enough to overcome the war policy of the 



u GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 37 

Junker party which expected to extend trade by con- 
quest. The failure of their attempt will hereafter 
be a warning. Cobden's hopes have proved to be too 
sanguine, because he did not foresee — how could he 
— the selfishness and rapacity of the Junker party and 
the military caste. But this idea, that the more the 
peoples trade freely with one another, the more they 
will learn that their true interests are not opposed is 
sound, and has always had great weight in British com- 
mercial policy, which has sought for no exclusive ad- 
vantages, but was content, in the confidence of its own 
energy, to leave the field open to all competitors. 

As an industrial people the English desire peace. 
They have not worshipped the State, and expected it to 
conquer markets for them or extort concessions. They 
have never made military glory their ideal. They have 
regarded war, not like Treitschke and his school, as 
wholesome and necessary, but as an evil, an evil which, 
although it gives an opportunity (as Europe sees to- 
day) for splendid displays of patriotism and heroic 
valour, is the cause of infinite suffering and misery, and 
ought, if possible, to be got rid of from the world. 
The killing of workers and the destruction of prop- 
erty appear to them to be a hideous waste of human 
effort. They have always been ready to fight when 
fighting became necessary. But they have not, like 
Prussia, loved war for its own sake, for they believe 
that it has done more than anything else to retard the 
progress of mankind. 

Our English ideal for the future is of a world in 
which every people shall have within its own borders 
a free national government resting on, and conforming 
to, the general will of its citizens, respecting the free- 
dom of the individual, and not seeking to cramp or 
supersede his initiative, a government able to devote 



38 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

its efforts to improving the condition of the people 
without encroaching on its neighbours or putting unfair 
pressure upon them, or being disturbed by the fear of 
an attack from enemies abroad. Legislators and ad- 
ministrators have already tasks sufficiently difficult in 
reconciling the claims of different classes, in adjusting 
the interests of capital and labour, in promoting health 
and diffusing education and enlightenment, without the 
addition of those tasks and dangers which arise from 
the terror of foreign war. 

There is, of course, a certain chauvinistic element 
in England, as in all countries, which finds some ex- 
pression in newspapers and books. There are some 
persons with a deficient respect for the rights of other 
nations — persons who indulge in sentiments of hatred, 
persons who believe in force, persons who, in fact, 
have what is now known as the " Prussian view of the 
world," and the Prussian preference of Might to Right. 
But such persons are in Britain comparatively few; 
they are a diminishing quantity and they command lit- 
tle influence. The great bulk of the nation does not 
cherish hatreds, is satisfied with what it possesses, does 
not intend to aggress on its neighbours, does not seek 
to impose its own type of civilization on the world. 
Our English phrase " Live and let live " expresses this 
feeling. Though we prefer our own way of living for 
ourselves, we do not think it therefore the best for 
other peoples also, and no more wish to see the world 
all English than we wish to see it all Prussian. 

The British people did not enter the war for the 
sake of gaining anything for themselves. They have 
not now fixed their mind on gaining (so far as con- 
cerns objects specially dear to themselves x ) anything 

l I speak, of course, only of what regards Britain's own aims, not of those 
which primarily concern her Allies. Besides these aims there are, of course, 



n GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 39 

except a vindication of the sanctity of treaties, a com- 
pleter security for the rights of neutral nations, the 
liberation of Belgium with full compensation to her 
for the injuries inflicted by the German armies, and 
adequate guarantees of future peace for themselves and 
their colonies. To this one must now add — since 
the Asiatic massacres of 19 15 — measures that will 
make impossible in the future cruelties and oppressions 
such as the Turks have practised upon the Eastern 
Christians. They have been horrified by those massa- 
cres; and the disclosure of the plans of the German 
Government for obtaining control over Western Asia, 
including the Caucasian countries and Persia, have con- 
vinced them that neither Turks nor Germans can be 
suffered to retain any foothold east or south of the 
Taurus mountains. 

In the foregoing pages I have sought to describe 
what I believe to be the principles and feelings and aims 
of the British people as a whole. It will not, I hope, 
be supposed that the description is submitted in a spirit 
of pharisaic self-satisfaction or self-assertion. We 
must not claim for Britain either that she is virtuous 
above other peoples, or that she has steadily lived up 
to her ideals. She has — as represented by her rulers 
— doubtless — sometimes declined from those ideals; 
and even since her Government became in 1832 more 
democratic, may have seemed from time to time oblivi- 
ous of them, whether through passion and pride or in 
ignorance of facts which she ought to have known. 
Nevertheless the principles above set forth have been, 
in the main, those which have long guided her course 
at home, and have, more recently, guided also her pol- 
icy abroad. They are the principles to which the na- 

also to be regarded the questions which affect subject nationalities, now op- 
pressed, and the questions which concern the welfare of native races, particularly 
in Africa. 



40 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

tional mind has returned after temporary aberrations. 
They are certainly those which animate her now, and 
which are moving her to make sacrifices as great as a 
people has ever made in what it held to be a righteous 
cause. 

Let me now add a few words of a more personal kind 
to explain the sentiments of those Englishmen who 
have in time past known and admired the achievements 
of the German people in literature, learning, and sci- 
ence, who had desired peace with them, who had been 
the constant advocates of friendship between the two 
nations. Such Englishmen, who do not cease to be 
lovers of peace because this war, felt to be righteous, 
commands their hearty support, are now just as de- 
termined as any others to carry on the war to victory. 
Why? Because to them this war presents itself as a 
conflict of principles. On the one side there is the 
doctrine that the end of the State is Power, that Might 
makes Right, that the State is above morality, that 
war is necessary and even desirable as a factor in 
progress, that the rights of small States must give way 
to the interests of great States, that the State may dis- 
regard all obligations whether undertaken by treaties 
or prescribed by the common sentiment of mankind, 
and that what is called military necessity justifies every 
kind of harshness and cruelty in war. This is an old 
doctrine — as old as the Sophists whom Socrates en- 
countered in Athens. It has in every age been held 
by some ambitious and unscrupulous statesmen. Many 
a Greek tyrant of antiquity, many an Italian tyrant in 
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, put it in prac- 
tice. Caesar Borgia is the most striking instance in 
the fifteenth century, Philip II. of Spain and his min- 
ions in the sixteenth, Frederick the Great in the eight- 
eenth, Napoleon Bonaparte in the nineteenth. 



h GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 41 

On the other side there is the doctrine that the end 
of the State is Justice, the doctrine that the State is, 
like the individual, subject to a moral law and bound in 
honour to observe its promises, that nations owe duties 
to one another and to mankind at large, that they have 
all more to gain by peace than by strife, that national 
hatreds are deadly things, condemned by philosophy 
and by Christianity. In the victory of one or the other 
of these two sets of principles the future of mankind 
seems to us to be at stake. 

I do not mean to attribute to the German people an 
adherence to the former set of doctrines, for I do not 
know how far these doctrines are held outside the 
military and naval caste which has now unhappily 
gained control of German policy, and it is hard to be- 
lieve that the German people, as they were known to 
those of us who studied at German universities more 
than fifty years ago, could possibly approve of the ac- 
tion of their Government if their Government suffered 
them to become acquainted with the facts relating to 
the origin and conduct of the war as those facts are 
now patent to the rest of the world. As we English 
had no hatred of the German people, neither have we 
any wish to break up Germany, destroying her national 
unity, or to take from her any territory which is really 
German, or to interfere in any way with her internal 
politics. Our quarrel is with the German Government. 
We think it a danger to every peaceful country, and 
believe that in fighting against its doctrines, its ambi- 
tions, its methods of warfare, we and our Allies are 
virtually fighting the battle of all peace-loving neutral 
nations as well as our own. We must fight on till 
victory is won, for a Government which scorns treaties 
and wages an inhuman warfare against innocent non- 
combatants cannot be suffered to prevail by such meth- 



42 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

ods. A triumphant and aggressive Germany, mis- 
tress of the seas as well as of the land, would be a 
menace to every nation, even to those of the western 
hemisphere. Had she been able to retain Belgium, to 
ruin France, to dominate Turkey and Persia and 
Turkistan, and, having done all this, to proceed to 
create an overwhelming navy — aims which it now 
appears she has cherished — adding to them that of 
exploiting Russia through vassal States in Finland, 
Esthonia, Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine and Trans- 
caucasia, no country would have been safe, not even 
Brazil and Argentina. 

Be this as it may, the facts show that the present 
rulers of Germany have acted upon the former set 
of doctrines (already described) as consistently as ever 
did Frederick or Napoleon. They seem to us to be 
smitten with a kind of mental disease which has sapped 
honour, extinguished pity, and destroyed the sense of 
right and wrong. They invaded Belgium without 
provocation, and slaughtered thousands of innocent 
non-combatants. They persisted, against the protests 
of the United States, in drowning innocent non-com- 
batants at sea. They looked calmly on while the 
Turkish allies whom they have dragged into the war, 
and whose action they could have restrained if they had 
cared to do so, were exterminating, with every cruelty 
Turkish ferocity can devise, a whole Christian nation. 
These things are a reversion to the ancient methods of 
savagery which marked the warfare of bygone ages. 
They are a challenge to civilized mankind — to neu- 
trals as well as to the now belligerent States. Neutral 
nations would do well to recognize this, for they are 
themselves concerned. The same methods may be 
hereafter used against them as are being used now. 
They also ought to desire the defeat of any and every 



n GREAT BRITAIN IN THE WAR 43 

« 
Government which adopts such principles and practises 
such methods, for its victory would be a blow to moral- 
ity and human progress which it would take centuries 
to retrieve. 

Those Englishmen whose views I am seeking to 
express, recognizing the allegiance we all owe to hu- 
manity at large, and believing that progress is achieved 
more by co-operation than by strife, are hoping and 
striving for something more than the victory of their 
own country. They desire to see the world relieved 
from the burden of armaments and from that constant 
terror of war which has been darkening its sky for 
so many generations. They ask whether it may not 
be possible, after the war has come to an end, to form 
among the nations an effective League of Peace, em- 
bracing smaller as well as larger peoples, under whose 
aegis disputes might be amicably settled and the power 
of the League invoked to prevent any one State from 
disturbing the general tranquillity. The obstacles in 
the way of creating such a League are many and ob- 
vious, but whatever else may come out of the war, we 
in England hope that one result of it will be the crea- 
tion of some machinery calculated to avert the recur- 
rence of so awful a calamity as that from which man- 
kind is now suffering. And this is one of the chief 
objects for which we are now contending, sacrificing 
every month thousands of the flower of our youth. 



CHAPTER III 

THE WAR STATE: ITS MIND AND ITS METHODS 

The present war differs from all that have gone before 
it, not only in its vast scale and in the volume of misery 
it has brought upon the world, but also in the fact that 
it is a war of Principles, and a war in which the perma- 
nent interests, not merely of the belligerent powers, but 
of all nations, are involved as such interests were never 
involved before. It concerns the world as a whole in 
both ways. The principles involved affect all mankind, 
but whichever way the issue of the war settles them, the 
settlement will be decisive for a long time to come. 
The good or evil fortune, materially and morally, of 
every nation, even of half-civilized tribes in Asia and 
Africa, will depend on the hands to whom power may 
fall when the war is over. 

These are facts which many persons in neutral coun- 
tries have not yet understood. In particular, they have 
not realized what are the doctrines and the ideals of the 
contending nations as these have appeared in the con- 
duct of the war. Each side has proclaimed its doc- 
trines and its ideals to some extent even in official docu- 
ments, but far more fully through books and news- 
papers. Never before did belligerents make such 
efforts to put their respective cases before the world; 
never was the behaviour of the fighting forces the sub- 
ject of so much comment. Nevertheless, in many neu- 
tral countries men seem to think that, as has usually 
happened in previous wars, there is no great distinction 

44 



chap, in THE WAR STATE 45 

between the combatants. They perceive that charges 
and countercharges are bandied to and fro, and they 
have not the patience to inquire which are true and 
which false. Being perhaps too lazy or indifferent to 
examine the motives and the conduct of the parties, they 
lapse into the easy assumption that both are equally to 
blame, and that if they themselves have any duty at all 
as citizens of a neutral country, that duty is only to do 
their best to bring back peace at the earliest possible 
moment, with no thought for a more distant future. 
Some neutral writers have put this view crudely by say- 
ing it is only a quarrel of two dogs over a bone whom 
the bystander would like to separate. Each nation is, 
they assume, fighting for its own selfish interests, just as 
the monarchs of Europe used to fight in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries to acquire territory or trade. 

Now this is not such a war. I do not deny that such 
a war of the older type might still occur. Nations 
might quarrel over their respective territorial claims 
and become angry enough to fight the matter out instead 
of going to arbitration. Such a war need not have 
raised any moral issue. For each of the contending 
claims there might have been good arguments, and it 
might well have been thought that faults on both sides 
had led to the outbreak of hostilities. Even if the bal- 
ance of merits inclined one way or the other, dispassion- 
ate and well-informed observers in neutral countries 
might have been divided in opinion as to those merits, 
and have hesitated to express their sympathies, as 
happened when war broke out between Prussia and 
Austria in 1866 and again between Russia and Japan 
in 1 90 1. 

But, let me repeat it, this is not a case in which neu- 
trals can look on with an indifferent or merely curious 
eye. This is a war of Principles, moral and political, 



46 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

in which every man in neutral countries who has a sense 
of his personal duties to his own country, and to human- 
ity, ought to try to find the truth and to form an honest 
and impartial judgment on the merits, so that the senti- 
ment of his country may cast its weight on the side of 
what may appear to be that of Justice and of the gen- 
eral welfare. 

Into the circumstances attending the outbreak of the 
war I will not here enter. That would lead me into 
too wide a field. Those circumstances may be studied 
in the documents published by the belligerent powers. 
No fuller and fairer examinations of them have been 
published than are contained in two books written by 
American jurists, the book of Professor Ellery Stowell 
entitled The Diplomacy of the War of IQ14, and the 
book of Mr. James M. Beck called The Evidence in the 
Case, books to which rather than to any English book I 
desire to refer because their authors, being neutrals, 
wrote with a complete freedom from national bias. 
Since they appeared we have also had the Memorandum 
of Prince Lichnowsky. 

I shall here examine, not the origins of the war, but 
the Conduct of the war, and that with especial reference 
to the light it casts upon the mind and purposes of those 
who rule Germany. However men may dispute as to 
the purposes and motives of the rulers and statesmen 
of Austria, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain, try- 
ing to set them in a worse or in a better light, the actual 
facts regarding the behaviour of the armed forces of 
the several nations are not really in dispute. Now and 
then some controversy has arisen about particular cases. 
But the broad facts stand; and these facts are enough, 
when carefully considered, to indicate the temper and 
spirit of the contending nations, to show by what prin- 
ciples they are guided, and what results the affirmation 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 47 



of those principles by success is likely to have on the 
future conduct of nations to one another and the wel- 
fare of mankind. 

Accordingly, without stopping to refute charges 
brought against Britain of having desired and planned 
this war, nor the supposed malicious scheme of " encir- 
cling Germany " by a ring of enemies which has been 
falsely attributed to King Edward VII., I will go 
straight to the first act in the war, the invasion of Bel- 
gium. It is a long-settled rule of international law 
that no belligerent nation has any right to claim a pass- 
age for its army across the territory of a neutral state; 
and the neutrality of Belgium had been guaranteed by a 
treaty signed in 1839 to which France, Prussia, and 
Great Britain were parties. Nevertheless the position 
which Belgium held between the German Empire and 
France had obliged her to consider the possibility that 
in the event of a war between these two Powers her neu- 
trality might not be respected. That neutrality she was 
bound to maintain. It was the condition of her crea- 
tion and her existence. So, in July 19 14, when the 
danger of war between Germany and France seemed 
imminent, France and Germany were both asked by 
Belgium to renew their promises to abstain from vio- 
lating her neutrality. France promised. The German 
Minister in Brussels replied that he knew of the assur- 
ances given by the German Chancellor in 191 1 to re- 
spect Belgian neutrality, and that he " was certain that 
the sentiments expressed at that time had not changed." 
Nevertheless on August 2 the same Minister presented 
a note to the Belgian Government demanding a passage 
through Belgium for the German army on pain of an 
instant declaration of war. Startled as they were by 
the suddenness with which this terrific war-cloud had 
risen on the eastern horizon, the leaders of the nation 



48 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

rallied round the king in his resolution to refuse the 
demand and to prepare for resistance. They were 
aware of the danger which would confront the civilian 
population of the country if it were tempted to take part 
in the work of national defence. Orders were accord- 
ingly issued by the civil governors of provinces, and by 
the burgomasters of towns, that the civilian inhabitants 
were to take no part in hostilities and to offer no provo- 
cation to the invaders. That no excuse might be fur- 
nished for severities, the populations of many important 
towns were instructed to surrender all firearms into the 
hands of the local officials. On the evening of August 
4 the German armies crossed the frontier into Belgium. 
They immediately began to shoot harmless civilians and 
to set fire to villages. This was the opening of that 
campaign of slaughter and destruction which they car- 
ried on against the civilian population of this neutral 
and practically defenceless country, men, women, and 
children, for several weeks, till all Belgium, except a 
district in the south-west, had been subjugated. 

All along the line of the German march innocent 
civilians, old men, women, and children, as well as other 
inhabitants, were murdered on the pretext that some 
persons in the towns and villages had shot at the invad- 
ing force. The leading inhabitants — often priests — 
were constantly seized and called " hostages," who were 
to be put to death if any resistance was made by any 
civilian, though these persons were not responsible for 
such resistance and could not have prevented it. Such 
" hostages " were frequently shot. 

Hundreds of innocent persons were seized, packed 
in baggage or cattle cars, and sent by railway to Ger- 
many, often without food or drink for many hours to- 
gether. Villages and large parts of such a city as Lou- 
vain were destroyed by fire. Shocking outrages were 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 49 



committed upon women, and that by officers as well as 
soldiers, and little effort was made to restrain or punish 
such crimes, which were often committed under the in- 
fluence of liquor. 

The accounts of these murders and other excesses 
which the refugees who escaped from Belgium reported 
found at first little credence in England, for it was hard 
to believe that the soldiers of a civilized nation could 
commit them. But when the Belgian, French, and 
British Governments caused the evidence of eye-wit- 
nesses among the refugees to be carefully taken and 
tested, it was proved beyond all question not only that 
such things had happened, but that they had happened 
by the orders of the German officers, who themselves 
were acting under orders from headquarters, and who 
sometimes expressed regret at having to execute such 
orders. A full account of them, with many extracts 
from the evidence, will be found in the Reports issued 
by the Belgian Government and in the Report of the 
Committee appointed by the British Government, issued 
in May 1915. 

If there are any persons in neutral countries who still 
think such things too horrible to be true, let them weigh 
these two facts. Diaries (written in German) found 
upon German prisoners or on the bodies of dead Ger- 
man soldiers contain records of the same (or quite sim- 
ilar) crimes as the evidence of the refugees established. 
The genuineness of these diaries, many of which have 
been published by the Belgian, French, and British in- 
vestigators, is not disputed by the German Government. 
They alone are sufficient to prove how the troops be- 
haved. 

The second fact is that the German Government has 
never attempted to disprove the evidence adduced 
against them. They did publish an official reply to the 



50 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

Belgian reports, but it consisted chiefly of allegations 
that Belgian civilians had given provocation by firing 
on German troops, thus " violating the well established 
rules of international law." As the German armies 
had entered Belgium in violation of international law, 
this argument loses whatever force it might have had 
if it had been engaged in legitimate warfare. But in 
point of fact the evidence adduced by the German White 
Book is often flimsy and untrustworthy, and the few 
cases with which it may be credited are conspicuously 
insufficient to justify, or even to palliate, the excesses 
committed by its troops. In reality, the vast majority 
of the persons executed, including the so-called " host- 
ages," had no responsibility for the occasional firings, 
such as they may have been. The fact that some other 
civilian belonging to the same town may have fired on 
the invaders does not justify the killing of an innocent 
person. To seize innocent inhabitants, call them 
" hostages " for the good behaviour of their town, and 
shoot them if the invaders are molested by persons 
whose actions these so-called " hostages " cannot con- 
trol, is murder and nothing else. Yet this is what the 
German commanders have done upon a great scale. 
The executions took place to strike terror into the Bel- 
gian population, to make easier the passage of the Ger- 
man armies, to coerce the Belgian forces into despair of 
resistance. This attempt at a justification was a tacit 
admission that the massacres had actually been perpe- 
trated. The facts soon became known in Holland, a 
few miles from some of the towns where the worst 
atrocities had been perpetrated, and no one, outside 
Germany, now entertains any doubts regarding them. 

These were the facts. What were the legal justifi- 
cations put forward by the German Government? 

Two were put forward. One was that France had 



in THE WAR STATE 51 

been planning to attack Germany through Belgium, and 
that French officers had, in pursuance of the plan, al- 
ready entered Belgium to arrange for the execution of 
an offensive there. This was a pure invention. The 
story was improbable, for it was not in the military 
interests of France to adopt such a method, and no evi- 
dence was adduced to support it. It was soon dropped, 
having served its temporary purpose with the credulous 
German public. 

The other allegation was that the British Govern- 
ment had conspired with that of Belgium sometime 
before to send a British army into the country to attack 
Germany. This was equally baseless. A British mili- 
tary attache had conversed with some Belgian officials 
as to what ought to be done if Germany were to invade 
Belgium, since Britain was pledged by a public treaty to 
defend Belgium in the event of her being attacked by 
any foreign power, a contingency which it was necessary 
to provide for, but no idea of making an offensive 
against Germany through her had ever been entertained 
in England; and this has been conclusively shown by 
the texts which the British Government has published. 
England had saved Belgian territory from attack in 
1870 by requiring both France and Germany to abstain 
from entering it, and she might have to do so again. 
Bismarck and Louis Napoleon had then given the 
promise required, but England could not be sure that 
Bismarck's successors would do so likewise. 

On this head, however, nothing more need be said, 
for the German Chancellor openly confessed in the 
Reichstag a few days after the beginning of the war 
that his Government had " committed a wrong " and 
had violated international law 1 by carrying war into a 
neutral country, the neutrality and independence of 

1 The German War Manual itself recognizes this principle. 



52 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

which they had guaranteed, and which, had there been 
no guarantee at all, was entitled by international law, 
and on the common principles of justice, to be exempt 
from invasion. His plea was military necessity, a ne- 
cessity of which Germany herself was to be the judge. 

When the German armies entered France, they ap- 
plied the same methods as in Belgium. Non-combat- 
ants were ruthlessly murdered. Villages were de- 
stroyed; houses pillaged and burnt. Women were 
violated, and no attempt made to restrain either the 
lust or the ferocity of the soldiery. Full accounts of 
these horrors, confirmed by the evidence of many sol- 
diers' diaries, have been published by the French Gov- 
ernment, and others may be found in the British Com- 
mittee's Reports, as well as in many books, such as that 
of Professor Morgan. 

Next after the murders on land came those at sea. 
Submarines began to destroy, usually without any warn- 
ing, unarmed merchant vessels, drowning their crews, 
and also unarmed passenger vessels, drowning their 
passengers. The Lusitania, in which nearly twelve 
hundred people perished, many of them citizens of neu- 
tral countries, was only one of many cases. Fishing- 
boats were constantly destroyed, and cases occurred in 
which^ when a vessel had been destroyed, its crew, trying 
to escape, were shelled by the submarine, or the subma- 
rine placed them on its upper surface and then sub- 
merged, drowning them. These practices, gross viola- 
tions of the rule of international law, which requires 
that the safety of those on board a merchant ship shall 
be provided for if she is sunk, have gone on till now. 
Even hospital ships, about whose character there could 
be no mistake, have been frequently torpedoed. 

Concurrently with these acts there were frequent 
attacks upon open undefended coast towns in England, 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 53 



often upon health resorts, such as Scarborough and 
Ramsgate, in which many civilians were killed. 

A little later than the murders on land and sea came 
the murders from the air. In the many air-raids over 
England no military damage has been done, and only a 
handful of soldiers, about fifty (so far as I know) , have 
suffered. But many hundreds of innocent civilians, 
mostly women and children, have been maimed or 
killed ; and the murders still go on. The German Gov- 
ernment must by this time know that these raids have 
no effect upon the British people except to rouse their 
anger and so to make them more determined than ever 
to prosecute the war. Such murders were blunders as 
well as crimes. Why, then, were the air-raids and the 
shelling of undefended coast towns continued? No 
military object was attained. Hardly any soldiers 
were killed. It was the civilians that suffered. The 
motive seems to have been to encourage the German 
people at home to believe that the English were being 
terrified, and to console them for the disappointments 
of military failure by the notion that in some way or 
other the German force was making itself effectively felt 
by the enemy they were being taught to hate. 

Many particular instances of cruelty may be passed 
over. That of Miss Edith Cavell, the lady who was, 
while nursing in a hospital at Brussels, executed for 
having aided a refugee to escape, is well remembered. 
But that of Captain Fryatt deserves mention, because 
he was vindictively put to death in cold blood, in flagrant 
violation of international law, for having, some months 
before a German vessel took him prisoner, gallantly 
defended the passenger vessel which he was command- 
ing against the attack of a German submarine, such 
defence being entirely legitimate, and, as legitimate, 
part of his duty to his own country. 



54 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

In 19 1 6 a new series of cruelties began to be practised 
upon civilians. At Lille and other towns in Northern 
France occupied by German troops many hundreds of 
girls were torn from their homes and carried off to 
Germany to be set to forced labour there, some of them, 
no doubt, destined to experience an even worse fate. 
About the same time many thousands of Belgian work- 
ing men were seized, and on the pretext that there was 
no employment for them in the towns where they lived, 
were carried off, amid the cries of their children and 
the shrieks of their wives, who flung themselves on the 
rails in front of the locomotives, to German towns, 
where they were forced to work for their enemy masters 
against their own fellow-countrymen. 

The motive, so the German Government announced, 
was a philanthropic one. It is not good for workmen 
to loiter unemployed. They will be happier if they 
have something to do. The unemployment, it need 
hardly be said, had been caused by the German Govern- 
ment itself, which had taken out of the country for its 
own use all the raw materials of industry and all the 
machinery. 

These workmen, though deprived of their former 
means of livelihood, were not starving. When the 
Germans refused to feed them, they were and had con- 
tinued to be fed by the charity of Americans and Eng- 
lishmen, directed by the admirable skill and energy of 
an American, Mr. Hoover. In one Belgian province, 
where some private factories were still going, the Ger- 
man authorities stopped these in order to invent a 
ground for treating the workmen as unemployed and 
driving them off into Germany to labour there. This is 
slave-raiding, worthy of those Arab marauders whom 
Livingstone tried to root out of Africa. 1 

1 As to these slave-raidings, see the book of M. Passelecy entitled, Les dt- 



in THE WAR STATE 55 

A similar violation of the best settled rules of inter- 
national law was carried out in Poland. Here the 
Polish inhabitants of the invaded districts which the 
German armies occupy were forced into the German 
Army on the pretext that the country had been already 
conquered and its people virtually German subjects. 
They were roped in and driven to die in order to per- 
petuate the tyranny which the German Government had 
already been exercising over their brethren in a part of 
old Poland which she has held by force these many 
years. 

The facts here briefly enumerated are indisputable 
and undisputed facts. Whatever the excuses or pallia- 
tions which the German Government may put forward, 
all these acts are flagrant violations, not only of the 
rules laid down by writers on international law, but of 
the long-settled practice of civilized nations. 

They are even worse. They violate the fundamental 
principles of natural justice and of common humanity. 
Even Bonaparte, whose offences shocked his contem- 
poraries, did not in eighteen years of war so offend 
against helpless innocence or commit so many breaches 
of the much laxer international rules of his time, nor as 
the German Generals have committed since August 4, 
1914. 

Last of all, I come to a case which surpasses all the 
others here mentioned or referred to, not only in the 
vastness of its scale, but in the hideous cruelties which 
were practised upon the victims, and in the fact that the 
victims did not belong to any of the countries with 
whom Germany was at war. They were the subjects, 
the innocent and helpless subjects, of one of Germany's 
trusted Allies. Among the peoples upon whom this 

portations beiges a la lumiere des documents Allemands, published at Paris 
and Nancy in 191 7. 



S 6 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

war has brought calamity and suffering, the Armenian 
people have had the most to endure. Great as has been 
the misery inflicted upon Belgium and Northern France, 
upon Poland, upon Serbia, the misery of Armenia, 
though far less known to the outer world, has been far 
more terrible. 

When the European War broke out in 19 14, the 
government of the Turkish Empire had fallen into the 
hands of a small gang of unscrupulous ruffians calling 
themselves the Committee of Union and Progress, who 
were ruling through their command of the army, but in 
the name of the harmless and imbecile Sultan. By 
means which have not yet been fully disclosed, but the 
nature of which can be easily conjectured, 1 this gang 
were won over to serve the interests of Germany; and 
at Germany's bidding they declared war against the 
Western Allies, thus dragging all the subjects of Tur- 
key, Muslim and Christian, into a conflict with which 
they had no concern. The Armenian Christians scat- 
tered through the Asiatic part of the Turkish domin- 
ions, having had melancholy experience in the Adana 
massacres some years previously of the cruelties which 
the Committee were capable of perpetrating, were care- 
ful to remain quiet, and to furnish no pretext to the 
Turkish authorities for an attack upon them. But the 
masters of Turkey showed that they did not need any 
pretext for the execution of the purposes they cher- 
ished. 2 They had formed a design for the extermina- 
tion of the non-Mohammedan elements in the popula- 

1 An extremely interesting account of the process by which the German 
Government lured the Turks into the war has been given by Mr. Morgenthau, 
who was then United States Ambassador at Constantinople, and had the best 
opportunities of watching the course of events, in the numbers for June and 
July of a well-known American magazine, The World's Work. 

2 The evidence for what is here stated will be found in the Blue Book (Mis- 
cellaneous, No. 31 of 1916) entitled The Treatment of Armenians in the Otto- 
man Empire, 1915-16, published by the British Government. No attempt has 
been made to reply to it, though the Turkish authorities invented a few false 
stories alleging provocation by a few of the Christians. 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 57 



tion of Asiatic Turkey, in order to make what they 
called a homogeneous nation, consisting of Mohamme- 
dans only. The wickedness of such a design was 
equalled only by its blind folly, for the Christian Arme- 
nians of Asia Minor and the north-eastern provinces 
constituted the most industrious, the most intelligent, 
and the best-educated part of the population. Most of 
the traders and merchants, nearly all the skilled artisans, 
were Armenians, and to destroy them was to destroy 
the best industrial asset which these regions possessed. 
However, this was the plan of the Committee of Union 
and Progress, and as soon as they began to feel, in the 
spring of 19 15, that the Allied expedition against the 
Dardanelles was not likely to succeed, they proceeded 
to execute it. They first disarmed all the Armenians 
in order to have them at their mercy, frequently com- 
pelling by tortures the surrender of arms ; and in some 
cases, in order to make it appear that the Armenians 
were intending to take up arms, they actually sent 
weapons into the towns and then had them seized as evi- 
dence against the Christians. When such means of de- 
fence as the Christians possessed had been secured, 
orders for massacre were issued from Constantinople 
to the local governors. The whole Armenian popula- 
tion was seized. The grown men were slaughtered 
without mercy. 1 The American Consul at Kharput 
saw the ravines in the mountains full of skeletons. 
Others have described the lines of corpses that lay along 
the roads for miles. The younger women were sold in 
the market-place to the highest bidder, or appropriated 
by Turkish military officers and civil officials to become 
slaves in Turkish harems. The boys were handed over 
to dervishes to be carried off and brought up as Mus- 

1 Some of the professors in the American colleges were murdered. So were 
several bishops: one was burnt alive. 



58 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

lims. The rest of the hapless victims, all the older 
men and women, the mothers and their babes clinging 
to them, were torn from their homes and driven out 
along the tracks which led into the desert regions of 
northern Syria and Arabia. Most of them perished on 
the way from hardships, from disease, and from starva- 
tion. Some few have been rescued by the British of- 
ficers in Mesopotamia. A few were still surviving in 
1917 near Aleppo and along the banks of the Eu- 
phrates. Many, probably many thousands, were 
drowned in that river and its tributaries, martyrs to 
their Christian faith, which they had refused to re- 
nounce; for it was generally possible for women, and 
sometimes for men, to save themselves by accepting 
Mohammedanism. By these various methods hun- 
dreds of thousands — the number is variously estimated 
at from 600,000 to 800,000 — have perished. Ger- 
many claims to be a Christian country. Its Emperor 
and its ministers of religion are constantly representing 
themselves as the special objects of Divine favour and 
protection. Now the German Government knew what 
was going on. Their Consuls reported to them. 
Some of their missionaries besought them to stop the 
massacres, declaring that the name of Germany would 
be for ever disgraced if these horrors continued. But 
no step was taken to arrest the hand of the destroyer. 
Instead of arresting it, they have honoured the two 
chief criminals, Talaat and Enver, with many compli- 
ments, and have made the last named of these wretches 
a Colonel in the German army. All happened with the 
tacit acquiescence of the German Government, some of 
whose representatives on the spot were even said to 
have encouraged the Turks in their work of slaughter, 
while the Government confined its action to the propa- 
gation in Germany, so as to deceive its own people, 



m THE WAR STATE 59 

false stories which alleged that the Armenians had been 
punished for insurrectionary movements, and to the 
exercise of a rigid censorship to prevent the truth from 
becoming known, through missionary accounts, to the 
German people. They made themselves accessories, 
whether before the crime or after the crime, to the most 
awful catastrophe that has ever befallen a Christian 
nation. Whether they desired to be rid of the most 
enterprising and vigorous race in Western Asia because 
it might be in the way of their plans for dominating 
those regions, or whether they merely desired to keep 
their friends of the Turkish gang in good humour by 
letting them kill to their hearts' content, we do not yet 
know. Whichever was the motive, the result is the 
most signal illustration yet given of the lengths to which 
the doctrine of a State interest, standing high above all 
morality and all compassion, can be pushed. 

All these facts, with many details too horrible to be 
repeated here, are set forth in the Blue Book recently 
published in England, based upon incontrovertible evi- 
dence, and to which no reply has been made, though 
some denials, palpably false, have emanated from the 
Turkish gang. 

The case of Armenia is peculiarly instructive as re- 
gards the principles which guide the German Govern- 
ment, because it shows the civil authorities just as un- 
scrupulous and just as ruthless as the chiefs of the army 
and navy. Though the German Chancellor and the 
Foreign Secretary acquiesced in the invasion of Bel- 
gium, they doubtless saw the political objections. One 
can well believe them to have remonstrated with the 
Emperor, but to have been overborne by the pressure 
of the soldiers. The shifts to which the Chancellor 
was driven for excuses, and his too-frank relief of his 
conscience by the admission of wrongdoing, suggest a 



60 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

reluctance. But the acquiescence in and tacit approval 
of the Asiatic massacres was a matter which fell within 
the province of the civilians and the Ambassador at 
Constantinople, and they showed a want of conscience, 
or human feeling, of religious feeling, which the most 
nardened soldier could not have surpassed. 

These are, presented in the barest outline, the essen- 
tial facts regarding the conduct of this war by the Ger- 
man Government and its military chiefs. Be it noted 
that the acts done were not done at random. They 
were not due to the brutality of individual officers or 
the passion of excited soldiers. They were done on 
principle, in pursuance of a settled policy. Said a Ger- 
man officer at Brussels: "I have not done one-hun- 
dreth part of what I have been ordered to do by the 
High German military authorities." 1 The crimes per- 
petrated happened — as the British Committee observe 
in their Report (p. 43) — "not from mere military 
licence, for the discipline of the German army is pro- 
verbially stringent, and its obedience implicit. Not 
from any special ferocity of the troops, for whoever 
has travelled among the German peasantry knows that 
they are as kindly and good-natured as any people in 
Europe. The excesses recently committed in Belgium 
were, moreover, too widespread and too uniform in 
their character to be mere sporadic outbursts of passion 
or rapacity. The explanation seems to be that these 
excesses were committed — in some cases ordered, in 
others allowed — on a system and in pursuance of a 
set purpose. That purpose was to strike terror into 
the civil population and dishearten the Belgian troops, 
so as to crush down resistance and extinguish the very 

1 Report of the British Committee, p. 42. Other instances are given, in 
which officers regretted the acts which their orders compelled them to do. 
There are doubtless plenty of naturally humane men in the German army, and 
that makes their subjection to the detestable system all the more regrettable. 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 61 



spirit of self-defence." This is evidently applicable 
also to the acts of inhumanity perpetrated by the cap- 
tains of the German submarines, when they killed, by 
shooting or by drowning, the crews of boats they cap- 
tured. They wished to terrorize British sailors, and 
nothing in the war has reflected more credit on any 
class of men than the fact that British sailors and fisher- 
men were not terrorized. 

The German manual of military practice (Kriegs- 
buch im Landkriege) goes a long way to justify these 
acts, for it recognizes as proper the taking and, if neces- 
sary, killing of hostages, the killing of a non-combatant 
who, being compelled to guide the troops of an enemy, 
leads them wrong. It declares that war must be di- 
rected against " the whole intellectual and moral re- 
sources of the enemy country " and not merely against 
the combatant armies. It even goes so far as to hint 
that " the exploitation of the crimes of third parties 
(assassination, robbery, incendiarism, and the like) is 
not opposed to international law." It bids an officer 
" to guard himself against excessive humanitarian no- 
tions." It advises him to study in military history the 
instances of stern severity. But, shocking as many of 
its propositions are, it condemns many particular of- 
fences of which the German officers were constantly 
guilty, and which were committed, as the evidence 
proves by the orders of the High Command, as part of 
their regular system. Its doctrine that military neces- 
sity (Kriegsnoth) is a general warrant for any sort of 
action was carried out by them even where their Man- 
ual seemed to recognize restrictions. 

These facts, considered and remembered, make a sad 
and terrible catalogue, which we would all gladly for- 
get, but it needs to be presented for two reasons. One 
is that it furnishes materials from which neutral nations 



62 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

may form a judgment as to the ideas and characters of 
the belligerent Governments, apart altogether from 
those questions relating to the original merits of the 
quarrel round which controversy still rages. Whatever 
may have been the motives and intentions of the Ger- 
man Government, here are its acts, unrepented of, jus- 
tified as a necessary part of war. Let neutrals judge 
from them, comparing them with the behaviour of the 
armies and fleets of the Entente Powers, what the tri- 
umph of one or other of the belligerent groups is likely 
to mean for the future peace and welfare of the world. 

The other reason is to enable the peoples of the 
Entente States and of America, as well as the neutral 
peoples, to understand the difficulties which surround 
the making of a treaty of peace with a Government 
which has such a record. 

For what is it that the facts here summarized prove? 
They show, and the German War Manual shows: 

1. That the German Government, by its own avowal, 

does not respect treaties when State interests 
require them to be broken. 

2. That it does not observe any engagements it has 

made regarding methods of conducting war. 
Most, perhaps all, of those it made at Hague 
Conferences have been violated. 

3. That it draws little, if any, distinction in the con- 

duct of war between combatants and non- 
combatants. 

4. That it shows, not only no sense of what used to 

be called " chivalry " in war, but no sense of 
pity for the helpless and the suffering. 

5. That it directs, or at least encourages, the inflic- 

tion of the wanton destruction of property and 
objects of beauty or historic interest, where no 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 63 



military advantage, unless that of terroriza- 

tion, is to be expected. 
6. That its only rule of action is to follow every 

method, however inhuman, however illegal, 

that is calculated to attain success. 
How are we to explain the proclamation of such 
doctrines and the carrying out of them in practice by 
the Government of a great nation which has attained, 
at various epochs of its long history, so much distinction 
in, and rendered such services to, philosophy and sci- 
ence, literature and art? 

The explanation lies partly in the history of Prussia, 
the state which has, since 1870, dominated and moulded 
the mind of Germany. It is a history of success in and 
by War from the end of the seventeenth century. It 
was observed long ago that the trade of Prussia is War. 
Among them the Soldier is the Master. Professor 
Gilbert Murray has excellently said: — 

Germany has produced the specialized soldier, not the humane 
soldier, the Christian soldier, the chivalrous soldier, or the sol- 
dier with a sense of civil duties, but the soldier who is trained 
to be a soldier and nothing else, to disregard all the rest of 
human relations, to see all his country's neighbours merely as 
enemies to be duped and conquered, to see all life according to 
some system of perverted biology as a mere struggle of force 
and fraud. The Germans have created this type of soldier, 
alike concentrated, conscienceless, and remorseless, and then — 
what no other people in the world has done — they have given 
the nation over to his guidance. 

This worship of War would not have spread from 
the military class throughout the nation had it not been 
accompanied by and blent with a worship of the State. 
It is the German conception of the State as an all- 
mastering power, to which every subject must conse- 
crate all his talents and activities, that has created 
among the people a sort of war idolatry. Militarism, 



64 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

instead of being restrained or softened down by the 
thinkers, the men of learning and science, has been al- 
lowed to infuse its poison into the mind of the nation, 
the nation being, one must remember, a nation in arms, 
and the army the nation. The British Committee, ex- 
pressing their amazement at the doctrines held and put 
in practice by the German High Command, observe 
(P-44) : — 

In the minds of Prussian officers War seems to have become a 
sort of sacred mission, one of the highest functions of the om- 
nipotent State, which is itself as much an Army as a State. 
Ordinary morality and the ordinary sentiment of pity vanish 
in its presence, superseded by a new standard which justifies to 
the soldier every means that can conduce to success, however 
shocking to a natural sense of justice and humanity, however 
revolting to his own feelings. The Spirit of War is deified. 
Obedience to the State and its War Lord leaves no room for 
any other duty or feeling. Cruelty becomes legitimate when 
it promises victory. Proclaimed by the heads of the army, this 
doctrine would seem to have permeated the officers and affected 
even the private soldiers, leading them to justify the killing of 
non-combatants as an act of war, and so accustoming them to 
slaughter that even women and children become at last the vic- 
tims. It cannot be supposed to be a national doctrine, for it 
neither springs from nor reflects the mind and feelings of the 
German people as they have heretofore been known to other 
nations. It is a specifically military doctrine, the outcome of a 
theory held by a ruling caste who have brooded and thought, 
written and talked and dreamed about War until they have 
fallen under its obsession and been hypnotized by its spirit. 

It is a singular result of this kind of obsession that 
it may affect the normal working of the mind in matters 
outside the sphere with which the mind is chiefly and 
primarily occupied. In the case of the German mili- 
tary caste, it prevented them from seeing and compre- 
hending the political facts with which, in the pursuit of 
their military aims, they had to deal. They did not 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 65 



perceive that the outer world would not recognize what 
had become to them fundamental axioms. They did 
not foresee that ruthlessness and faithlessness would 
rouse against them an anger and hatred which would do 
them a harm in the field of politics exceeding whatever 
gain ruthlessness and faithlessness could bring them in 
the field of war. Bishop Butler once asked whether a 
nation could go mad. The distortion of the military 
mind from the natural human view of things so dis- 
turbed its balance as to produce something resembling 
monomania. 

As it is hard to describe the German worship of the 
State, except in terms drawn from religion, so the near- 
est parallel to this obsession of a highly trained body 
of men by one dominant idea, which extinguishes ordi- 
nary morality and normal human feeling, is to be found 
in the fanaticism which occasionally seizes those who 
have come to live in one doctrine and for one purpose, 
which becomes their faith. The Spanish Inquisitors of 
the sixteenth century were possessed by a zeal for or- 
thodoxy which narrowed their minds to a single concep- 
tion of life and duty. The one thing that mattered was 
to bring and keep every human creature to the words 
and forms of the orthodox Roman creed and worship. 
Heresy was the deadliest thing in the world, for only by 
exact orthodoxy and implicit obedience to the Church 
could souls be saved. This belief covered their whole 
sky; this extinguished all other feelings. They were 
not naturally worse than other men. But to them all 
methods were lawful for tracking down a heretic, all 
cruelties laudable that could extort a confession or the 
disclosure of an accomplice, or could give to punish- 
ment a more frightfully deterrent power. Strange are 
the aberrations of human nature. Fanaticism may 
manifest itself in one sphere of thought and action or 



66 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

another. But its familiar symptoms always recur; and 
they may be as deadly in the soldier as in the priest. 

We may now revert to the practical issues which this 
study of German war methods raises for neutral na- 
tions. What help does it afford them for judging the 
questions involved in the conflict which the Entente 
Powers on the one hand, Germany and Austria on the 
other, are maintaining? What light does it throw on 
the characters of the belligerent nations themselves? 

We have seen what Germany's war doctrines are and 
how perfectly her practice follows and conforms to her 
doctrines. Can any charges similar to those which have 
been proved against her be advanced against the armies 
or the fleets of Britain, France, and Italy? Have they 
broken faith or murdered non-combatants, or gone in 
any respect beyond what the settled rules for the con- 
duct of war authorize? It may be that here and there 
regrettable acts have been done by individual soldiers. 
Such things cannot but happen in any war. But the 
military and naval authorities have, as everybody 
knows — except, indeed, the German people, who have 
been fed up by their Government with false stories 
against French soldiers and British sailors — conducted 
their operations with as much regard to justice and 
humanity as the process of fighting allows, and have 
abstained from severities which the doctrine of Retalia- 
tion upon an enemy who has himself violated interna- 
tional usage might have allowed. No maxims of 
cruelty, no justifications of it as necessary, like those 
which the German Manual contains, stand in the books 
used by British officers for their guidance. If, there- 
fore, a verdict is to be delivered by neutrals upon the 
merits of this war after a consideration of the way in 
which it has been actually waged, can they have any 
doubt as to the side that is entitled to their sympathy? 



HI 



THE WAR STATE 67 



If they look into the future and ask themselves what 
will be the effect on the welfare of mankind which the 
victory of one or other party in such a conflict of prin- 
ciples, principles only too well illustrated by practice, 
must have, have they not ample materials for their deci- 
sion? Let them ask themselves what difference will it 
make to the world if the War doctrines and State doc- 
trines maintained by the German Government are ap- 
proved by success, and if German war methods are 
found to have accomplished what the High Command 
expects from them? 

Through many centuries the nations have been slowly 
climbing out of the savagery of primitive tribal warfare 
into the general acceptance and observance of rules for 
the conduct of war which, if they did not remove, did at 
least mitigate its horrors, and limited their range by 
assuring safety to non-combatants. The German Gov- 
ernment has now gone back to savagery. All restric- 
tions are removed. All pretence of good faith is tossed 
aside. If Germany should win the war the stamp of 
success will have been set upon her methods. She will 
reproduce them and other nations will imitate them in 
those future wars which her scientific thinkers pronounce 
to be necessary for the progress of mankind. The 
gains of these later centuries will have been lost, and 
the last state of the world will have become so much 
worse than the first, because the evil spirits that had 
seemed to have been exorcised will now have at their 
command the boundless resources of modern science. 

There is another feature of the war and of the part 
which the German Government has been playing in it 
which may give cause for thought to those neutral peo- 
ples that value liberty. Respect for the Rights of Man 
as Man is the foundation of every free self-governing 
community. If therefore any State shows itself in war 



68 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

disregardful of human rights in the person of civilian 
non-combatants, as, for instance, if it murders or en- 
slaves them, it commits what may be called a political 
as well as a moral offence, indicating its scorn for those 
feelings, and trampling on the laws and customs which 
hold communities together. Whatever brings back the 
regime of brute force lowers human nature and destroys 
men's confidence in one another. Right and Duty are 
the cement which holds citizens together in a free com- 
monwealth. A blow struck at them is a blow struck at 
democracy. 

Another question also is raised which affects not only 
neutrals, but also the peoples of the Entente countries 
and of the United States. When the time arrives for 
negotiating a peace — and it must be a peace whose 
conditions are not left to the discretion of the Govern- 
ments, but one approved by the will of the peoples — 
what principles, what considerations are to prescribe 
their action in settling the terms to be given to a de- 
feated Germany? 

I pass by the preliminary difficulty on which many 
writers and speakers have dwelt — that of making a 
treaty with a Government which has announced that it 
does not respect treaties any further or longer than suits 
its own interests, but will break its promises when State 
necessity requires. The difficulty is a real one. 
Treaties, however, must be made, though the experi- 
ence of Belgium may suggest that the performance of 
their obligations will need to be fortified by something 
stronger than a scrap of paper. 

A further feature of the situation is unfortunate. 
The behaviour of the German armies in France and 
Belgium, the murders of American and English non- 
combatants by the German submarines, the inhumanity 
with which prisoners of war have been treated — all 



Ill 



THE WAR STATE 69 



these things have evoked a cry for revenge. That was 
inevitable. But revenge, however natural, is a bad 
guide in politics. The more it can be held in check, the 
better for the victors themselves. 

In the peace congresses heretofore held the questions 
discussed have usually turned upon material interests, 
such as cessions of territory or war indemnities, or fu- 
ture conditions of trade, or possibly upon the protection 
of subject populations, such as were the Christian sub- 
jects of Turkey or (in former days) the Protestant 
subjects of Roman Catholic Powers. But this war pre- 
sents some different phenomena. It is a war of Prin- 
ciples, a war between two hostile systems of ideas. 
These systems are irreconcilable. One of them has 
challenged the other to a mortal combat. If it is not 
defeated it may be expected to renew that combat so 
soon as it has recovered from that exhaustion which 
awaits all the combatants. The interests involved are 
not material merely. They are also moral. 

Victory will consist not merely in such territorial re- 
arrangements as the principle of nationality, judiciously 
applied, may show to be needed for the future peace of 
Europe and Western Asia (including, of course, the 
liberation of Belgium and Serbia and the deliverance of 
the Eastern Christians from the Turks), but also in 
assuring the triumph of the principles which are at 
stake, and which have brought Britain and America 
into the war, the respect for the faith of treaties, and 
for the rights of small nations, the protection of non- 
combatants in war, the overthrow of what is called 
Prussian Militarism, that system whose unbridled am- 
bition has threatened the liberties of the world. 

Every thoughtful man, every one who has any pity 
in his heart, must desire this war, which has been de- 
stroying the flower of our youth and carrying sorrow 



70 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

into every home, to be brought to a speedy end. But 
we must also feel — and those of us who have been 
workers for peace through all our lives feel it as much 
as any others — that a peace made now, leaving the 
military system and military caste of Germany still un- 
broken in power, in credit, in self-confidence, in its pres- 
tige and ascendancy over its own people, would be only 
a truce, a brief respite in a conflict which that military 
caste would resume as soon as it had repaired its losses. 

To make the sort of treaty which the German Gov- 
ernment desires, and which it from time to time hints it 
might accept, would not only leave that Government in 
possession of ill-gotten gains, with no adequate repara- 
tion for the wrongs it has inflicted, but would be an 
acquiescence in, almost an encouragement to repeat, the 
methods by which its armies has carried on the war, and 
would leave the peace-loving peoples the victims to per- 
petually recurring fears and suspicions, obliged to main- 
tain military and naval armaments even vaster and cost- 
lier than those which had become, before the war, an 
intolerable burden. The Allies feel, and they desire 
neutral nations to know, that if it becomes necessary to 
fight on till the ill-gotten gains have been disgorged and 
the reparation made, neither passion nor revenge, but a 
conviction of what is needed for future safety will be 
their motive. 

What, then, can be done to overthrow what is called 
"Prussian Militarism"? There is no more use in 
reasoning with the military caste that rules Germany 
than there would have been in reasoning with Spanish 
Inquisitors. Their premises, the settled convictions by 
which they are possessed and obsessed, are fundamen- 
tally different from those which the Western nations 
hold. Whatever Christianity may mean to them, it 
means something different from what it means to us in 



m THE WAR STATE 71 

Britain and America. Who their God is we know not. 
He is not our God. Can we appeal to the German 
people? Unfortunately a large part of the educated 
upper class would seem to have been either indoctri- 
nated with militaristic doctrines or debarred by na- 
tional patriotism from expressing open dissent. The 
masses of the people have been kept in ignorance of the 
causes of the war and the real behaviour of their rulers. 
They have formed habits of obedience, and they have 
not the constitutional means that democracies possess 
for asserting their will and changing the policy of the 
Government. We have hoped and waited for an' as- 
sertion of that will, but so far we have waited in vain. 
It is not for us to interfere with the internal affairs of 
Germany. " Who would be free, themselves must 
strike the blow." 

These things being so, the only course left would 
seem to be to cut up by its roots the cause which has 
given to Prussian militarism the power over the Ger- 
man mind which it enjoys. That cause has been the 
long tradition of military victory, and of the extension 
and enrichment of the State by war. If this military 
prestige can be destroyed, the power of the ruling caste 
will wither and fall. The British and American peo- 
ples ought not to wish, and I believe that they do not 
wish, to dismember Germany or to inflict any permanent 
injury on her people. What they seek is a peace of 
safety, a peace the terms of which shall make it clear to 
the world, and especially to the German people, that 
the doctrine of Force as the only power, and the prac- 
tice of those methods by which Force has been applied, 
have been decisively condemned by Failure, and that 
the most tremendous effort ever made to substitute 
Force for Right has been defeated, because it evoked 
the righteous indignation of the world. 



CHAPTER IV 

WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 

An Address delivered on the Huxley Foundation to the University of 
Birmingham in 1916 



Those who have studied the general principles that 
guide human conduct, and the working out of these 
principles as recorded in history, have noted two main 
streams of tendency. One of these tendencies shows 
itself in the power of Reason and of those higher and 
gentler altruistic emotions, which the development of 
Reason or Philosophy as the guide of life tends to 
evoke and foster. The other tendency is associated 
with the less rational elements in man — with passion 
and those self-regarding impulses which attain their 
ends by physical violence. 

Thus two schools of philosophical thinkers or his- 
torians have been formed. One lays stress on the 
power of the former set of tendencies. It finds in 
them the chief sources of human progress in the past, 
and expects from them its further progress in the 
future. It regards men as capable of a continual ad- 
vance through the increasing influence of reason and 
sympathy. It dwells on the ideas of Justice and Right 
as the chief factors in the amelioration of society, and 
therefore regards good-will and peace as the goal of 
human endeavour in the sphere both of national and of 
international life. Its faith in human nature — that 

72 



chap, iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 73 

is to say, in the possibility of improving human nature 
— fills it with hopes for the ordinary man, who may, 
in its view, be brought by education, and under a 
regime of beneficence, to a higher level than he has 
yet anywhere attained. 

The other school is less sanguine. It insists on the 
power of selfishness and of passion, holding these to 
be elements in human action which can never be greatly 
refined or restrained, either by reason or by sympathy. 
Social order — so it holds — can be secured only by 
Force, and Right itself is created only by Force. It is 
Force that has in the past made what men call Right 
and Law and Government; it is still Force alone that 
sustains the social structure. The average man needs 
discipline ; and the best thing he can do is to submit 
to the strong man — strength, of course, consisting not 
only in physical capacity, but in a superiority of will 
and intellect also. This school, which used to defend 
slavery as useful and, indeed, necessary — the older 
among us can remember a time when that ancient, time- 
honoured institution was still so defended — prefers 
the rule of the superior One or Few, i.e. monarchy or 
oligarchy, to the rule of the Many. Quite consistently, 
it has usually regarded war as a necessary and valuable 
form of discipline, because war is the final embodiment 
and test of physical force. 

This opposition can be traced a long way back. It 
is already visible in the days of Plato, who combats the 
teaching of some of the Sophists that Justice is merely 
the advantage of the strong. From his time onward 
great philosophical schools followed his lead. So the 
poets, from Hesiod onward, gave an ideal expression to 
the joys of peace in their pictures of a Golden Age be- 
fore the use of copper and iron had been discovered. 
Virgil describes the primeval Saturnia Regna, the time 



74 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

before war trumpets were blown or the anvil sounded 
under the strokes of the swordsmith's hammer: 

Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum 
Impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses. 

This was the happy time of man, to which the Roman 
poet who acclaimed the restoration of peace by Augus- 
tus looked back, desiring a rest from the unending 
strife of the ancient world. Just after Virgil's day, 
Christianity proclaimed peace as its message to all 
mankind. Twelve hundred years later, in an age full 
of strife, Dante, the most imaginative mind of the 
Middle Ages, hoped for peace from the universal sway 
of a pious and disinterested Emperor; and, nearly six 
hundred years after him, in the days of Frederick the 
Great of Prussia, Immanuel Kant, the greatest meta- 
physician of the modern world, produced his plan for 
the establishment of an everlasting peace. 

These hopes and teachings of poets and philoso- 
phers, though they had little power in the world of fact 
(for few rulers or statesmen, even of those who ren- 
dered lip-service to pacific principles, ever tried to apply 
them to practice), continued to prevail in the world 
of theory, and seemed, especially after the final ex- 
tinction of slavery half a century ago and the spread 
of democracy from America to Europe, to be passing 
into the category of generally accepted truths. 

Latterly, however, there has come a noteworthy re- 
action. A school of thinkers has arisen which, not 
content with maintaining war to be a necessary factor 
in the relations between states, as being the only ulti- 
mately available method of settling their disputes, de- 
clares it to be a method in itself wholesome and socially 
valuable. To these thinkers it is hot an inevitable evil, 
but a positive good — a thing not merely to be expected 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 75 

and excused, but to be desired for the benefits it confers 
on mankind. This school challenges the assumptions 
of the lovers of peace and denounces their projects of 
disarmament and arbitration as pernicious. War, it 
seems, is a medicine which human society needs, and 
which must be administered at frequent intervals; for 
it is the only tonic capable of bracing up the character 
of a nation. 

Such doctrines are a natural result of the system of 
thought which exalts the functions and proclaims the 
supremacy of the State. The State stands by Power. 
The State is Power. Its power rests upon force. By 
force it keeps order and executes the law within its 
limits. Outside its limits there is no law, but only 
force. Neither is there any morality. The State is a 
law unto itself, and owes no duty to other states. Self- 
preservation is the principle of its being. Its Might 
is Right, the only possible Right. War, or the threat 
of war, is the sole means by which the State can make 
its will prevail against other states; and where its in- 
terest requires war, to war it must resort, reckless of 
the so-called rights of others. 

This modern doctrine, or rather this modernized 
and developed form of an old doctrine, bases itself on 
two main arguments. One is drawn from the realm 
of animated nature, the other from history. Both lines 
of argument are meant to show that all progress is 
achieved by strife. Among animals and plants it is 
Natural Selection and the Struggle for Life that have 
evolved the higher forms from the lower, destroying 
the weaker species, and replacing them by the stronger. 
Among men it is the same process of unending conflict 
that has enabled the higher races and the more civilized 
states to overcome the lower and less advanced, either 
extinguishing them altogether, or absorbing them and 



76 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

imposing upon such of them as remain, the more per- 
fect type of the conquerors. 

The theory I am describing has, in these latest years, 
acquired for us a more than theoretical interest. It 
has passed out of the world of thought into the world 
of action, becoming a potent factor in the relations of 
states. It has been used to justify, not merely war 
itself, but methods of warfare till recently unheard 
of — methods which, though recommended as promot- 
ing human progress, threaten to carry us back into the 
ages of barbarism. It deserves to be carefully ex- 
amined, so that we may see upon what foundations it 
rests. I propose to consider briefly the two lines of 
argument just referred to, which may be called the bio- 
logical and the historical. 

II 

Never yet was a doctrine adopted for one set of rea- 
sons which its advocates could not somehow contrive 
to support by other reasons. In the Middle Ages 
men generally resorted to the Bible, rarely failing to 
find a text which they could so interpret as to justify 
their views or their acts. Pope Gregory the Seventh, 
perhaps the most striking figure of the eleventh cen- 
tury, proved to the men of his time that his own spirit- 
ual power was superior to the secular power by citing 
that passage in the Book of Genesis which says that 
the sun was created to rule the day and the moon to 
rule the night. The modern reader may not see the 
connection, but Gregory's contemporaries did. The 
sun was the Popedom and the moon was the Empire. 
In our own time — I am old enough to remember the 
fact, and the reader will find it referred to in Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, a book which ought to be still read, for 
its appearance was followed by great results — the 



it WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 77 

apologists of Negro slavery justified that " peculiar 
institution " by quoting the passage in Genesis where 
Noah prophesies that Ham, or rather Canaan the son 
of Ham, shall serve his elder brother Shem. In the 
then current biblical ethnology, Ham was the pro- 
genitor of the black races of Africa, and the fact that 
even that ethnography did not make Shem the pro- 
genitor of the Anglo-American race, which the children 
of Ham were destined to serve, was passed lightly 
over. This argument had no great currency outside 
the Slave States. But another book besides the Bible 
was open, and to that also an appeal was made: the 
Book of Nature. It was frequently alleged by the de- 
fenders of slavery in Europe, as well as in America, 
that the Negro was not really a man, but one of the 
higher apes, and certain points from his bone-structure 
were adduced to prove this thesis. I well remember 
listening to a lecture in which Huxley demolished it. 

Less use is made of Scripture now for political pur- 
poses than in the days of Gregory the Seventh or even 
in those of Jefferson Davis. But attempts to press 
science into the service of politics are not unknown in 
our generation, so we must not be surprised that a 
nation which is nothing if not scientific should have 
sought and found in what is called the Darwinian Doc- 
trine of Natural Selection a proof of their view that 
the elimination of the weak by the strong is a principle 
of universal potency, the method by which progress is 
attained in the social and political, no less than in the 
natural sphere. 

Their argument has been stated thus: The geo- 
logical record shows that more highly developed forms 
have been through countless ages evolved from forms 
simpler and more rudimentary. Cryptogamous plants 
— such as lichens, mosses, ferns — come first, and out 



78 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

of these the phanerogamous were developed. Animal 
life began with zoophytes and molluscs; serpents and 
birds followed; then came the mammalia, these cul- 
minating in Man. Some species disappeared, and were 
replaced in the perpetual struggle for existence by 
others that had proved themselves stronger. Every 
species fights to maintain itself against the others; 
there is not room enough for all; the weak disappear, 
the stronger prevail. So the earlier forms of man him- 
self have succumbed to others superior in strength; 
and among these latter some races have shown a 
greater capacity, physical and mental, and have either 
displaced or exterminated or conquered the weaker, 
sometimes enslaving them, sometimes absorbing them. 
When the conquered survive, they receive the impress 
of the conqueror and are conformed to his more per- 
fect type. Thus the white man has prevailed against 
the coloured man. Thus the Teuton is prevailing 
against the Slav and the Celt, and is indeed fitted by 
his higher gift for intellectual creation, as well as prac- 
tical organization, to be the Lord of the World, as 
the lion is lord of the forest and the eagle lord of the 
air. 

As progress in the animal creation is effected by a 
strife in which the animal organisms possessing most 
force prevail and endure, so progress in the political 
world comes through conflicts in which the strongest 
social organisms, that is, the states best equipped for 
war, prove themselves able to overcome the weaker. 
Without war this victory of the best cannot come about. 
Hence, war is a main cause of progress. 

Lest this summary should misrepresent the view I 
am endeavouring to state — and it is not easy to state 
it correctly, for there lurks in it some mental confusion 
— I will cite a few passages from one of its exponents, 



xv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 79 

slightly abridging his words for convenience of quota- 
tion. 1 Others have probably stated it better, but all 
that need be done here is to show how some, at least, 
of those who hold it have expressed themselves. 

" Wherever we look in Nature we find that war is 
a fundamental law of development. This great verity, 
which has been recognized in past ages, has been con- 
vincingly demonstrated in modern times by Charles 
Darwin. He proved that nature is ruled by an un- 
ceasing struggle for existence, by the right of the 
stronger, and that this struggle in its apparent cruelty 
brings about a selection eliminating the weak and the 
unwholesome." 

" The natural law to which all the laws of nature 
can be reduced is the law of struggle." 

" From the first beginning of life, war has been the 
basis of all healthy development. Struggle is not 
merely the destructive, but the life-giving principle. 
The law of the stronger holds good everywhere. 
Those forms survive which are able to secure for them- 
selves the most favourable conditions of life. The 
weaker succumb." 

Now, let us examine this so-called argument from the 
biological world and see whether or how far it supports 
the thesis that the law of progress through strife is a 
universal law, applicable to human communities as well 
as to animals and plants. 

Several objections present themselves. First. This 
theory is an attempt to apply what are called Natural 
Laws to a sphere unlike that of external nature. The 
facts we study in the external world are wholly differ- 
ent from those we study in human society. There are 
in that society certain generally observable sequences 
of phenomena which we popularly call laws of social 

1 Germany and the Next War, by General von Bernhardi, p. 18. 



80 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

development: that is to say, individual men and com- 
munities of men show certain recurrent tendencies which 
may be compared with the recurrent sequences in the 
behaviour of inanimate substances and in the animated 
creation. But the human or social sequences have not 
that uniformity, that generality, that capacity for being 
counted or measured, and thereby expressed in precise 
and unvarying terms, which belong to things in the 
world of external nature. Oxygen and sulphur always 
and everywhere behave (so far as we know) in exactly 
the same way when the conditions are exactly the same. 
Every oak tree and every apple tree, however different 
the individuals of the species may be in size, grow in 
the same way, and the laws of their growth can be so 
stated as to be applicable to all members of the species. 
But we cannot do more than conjecture, with more or 
less confidence, but never with certainty of prediction, 
how any given man or any given community of men will 
behave under any given set of conditions. 

The human body no doubt consists of tissues, and 
the tissues of cells. But each individual in the species 
Homo Sapiens Enropaeus has, when considered as a 
human being, something peculiar to himself which is 
not and cannot be completely known or measured. His 
action is due to so many complex and hidden causes, 
and is therefore so incalculable by any scientific ap- 
paratus, he is played upon by so many forces whose 
presence and strength no qualitative or quantitative 
analysis can determine, that both his thoughts and his 
conduct are practically unpredictable. That which we 
call a scientific law is therefore totally different in the 
social world from what it is in the world of external 
nature. Considerations drawn from the latter world 
are accordingly, when applied to man, not arguments 
but, at best, mere analogies, sometimes suggestive as 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 81 

indicating lines of inquiry, but never approaching the 
character of exact science. 

Secondly. That which is called the Darwinian prin- 
ciple of Natural Selection is a matter still in controversy 
among scientific men. A distinguished zoologist, for 
instance, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, whose little book en- 
titled Evolution and the War may be commended as 
full of interest and instruction, pronounces the principle 
to be only a highly probable hypothesis regarding the 
process by which the evolution of species has taken 
place, but still no more, as yet, than a hypothesis. The 
methods by which natural selection takes place are un- 
certain. Higher and more complex forms do certainly 
come out of lower and simpler forms; and the adapta- 
bility to environment would seem to be an extremely 
important factor in their development. More than 
that — so one gathers from the biologists — we are not 
entitled to assert. 

Thirdly. The Struggle for Life in the Darwinian 
sense is not so much a combat between species as a com- 
bat between individuals of the same species, which, like 
the seeds of plants, dispute the same bit of soil, or, like 
the carnivorous animals, feed on the same creatures and 
find there is not enough to go round. In the animal 
world we find nothing that really resembles the wars 
of human tribes or states. Tigers or other bellicose 
animals do not fight either with other tigers or with 
such other feline tribes as leopards. Individuals may 
fight in those occasional cases where the possession of 
the same female is disputed by two males; but groups 
do not fight each other. Tigers kill antelopes for food; 
they have no impulse to dominate or to extirpate, but 
only desire to support their own life. If zoology fur- 
nishes any analogy to the contests of nations, it is to be 
found, not in the clash of Teutonic and Slavonic armies, 



82 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

but where there is an appropriation, by individuals 
possessing superior industry and skill, of the means of 
livelihood and opportunities for amassing wealth which 
trade and civilized finance offer to all alike who will 
address themselves to the task. Here we see not war, 
but a competition for means of livelihood. 

Fourthly. The supersession of one species by an- 
other is certainly not effected, in the external world, by 
fighting, but apparently by the adaptation to its en- 
vironment of the species which ultimately survives. 
Where an oceanic island like Hawaii is overrun by 
new species of plants whose seeds, or seedlings, are 
brought from another country, what happens is that 
some of the new species thus introduced find in the isle 
an environment of soil and climate which suits them so 
well that they multiply and crowd out, by their natural 
growth in the soil, the weaker of the native species es- 
tablished there, till at last a mixed flora results, repre- 
senting both the old natives and other species from 
elsewhere. In 1883, when I saw it, Hawaii had thrice 
been thus overrun. You may see a somewhat similar 
process where the turf has been cut off a piece of land, 
leaving it bare for seeds to settle on. Various species 
appear, some perhaps hardly known before in the 
neighbourhood; but after some years a few will be 
found in exclusive possession. Here we have a phe- 
nomenon to which there are parallels in the rapid 
growth and increase of some trees in certain situations 
which favour them and the consequent displacement of 
others. But there is nothing like this in human war. 
And, on the other hand, there is in the animal world no 
parallel to the fundamental fact that in human warfare 
it is not the weaker but the stronger part of the popu- 
lation that is drawn away to perish on the battlefield. 

Fifthly. We must note in this connection two other 
important factors in the extension and decline of 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 83 

species. One of them is liability to disease. The 
other is fecundity. Here an analogy between plants 
and animals, on the one hand, and the races or sub- 
races of mankind may no doubt be traced. But there 
is here no conflict. The causes which make some spe- 
cies more susceptible to maladies than others, or make 
some more prolific than others, exist everywhere in 
animated nature. But they exist in the species, or 
race, being due to something in its peculiar constitution. 
They have nothing to do with conflict between one 
species, or one race, and another species or race. 
That these physical factors have more to do with the 
numerical strength of a species than has its capacity 
for fighting becomes so clear when we compare the 
diffusion of some non-predatory with some predatory 
species, that it is not worth while to adduce instances. 
It may be noted, however, that in some of the most 
advanced races of man the birth-rate is so much lower 
than it is in the backward races as to threaten the ulti- 
mate supremacy of the former. 

These considerations, which I have been obliged to 
state only in outline, seem sufficient to show how hollow 
is the argument which recommends war as the general 
law of the universe and a main cause of progress in the 
human as well as the natural world. It is not an argu- 
ment at all, but an analogy, and an imperfect one at 
that. Let me add that the view which regards war as 
a useful factor in human development had no support 
from Darwin himself. 1 So far from considering war 
a cause of progress in general, or of improvement in 
the population of a particular country, he wrote, in 
the Origin of Species: " In every country in which a 

1 My friend, Major Leonard Darwin, in a letter which appeared in the Press 
in 1914, expressly denied that his illustrious father had ever countenanced 
this application of his theory of Natural Selection. He considered that war 
tended to the injury of the human species by killing off the best. 



84 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

large standing army is kept up, the finest young men 
are taken by conscription or enlisted. They are thus 
exposed to early death during war, are often tempted 
into vice, and are prevented from marrying during the 
prime of life. On the other hand, the shorter and 
feebler men, with poor constitutions, are left at home, 
and consequently have a much better chance of mar- 
rying." 

ill 

So much for the first set of grounds on which the war 
theorists rely. Let us turn to the second, that is to 
say, the argument from history. It is alleged that the 
record of all that man has done and suffered is largely 
a record of constant strife — a fact undeniably true — 
and that thereby the races and nations and states which 
are now able to do most for the further advance of man- 
kind have prevailed. They have prevailed by war; 
war, therefore, has been the means, and the necessary 
means, of that predominance which has enabled them 
to civilize the best parts of the globe. 

Before entering this part of the enquiry, let us see 
what Progress means. It is a term which covers sev- 
eral quite different things. 

There is Material progress, by which I understand 
an increase in wealth, that is, in the commodities useful 
to man, which give him health, strength, and longer 
life, and make his life easier, providing more comfort 
and more leisure, and thus enabling him to be more 
physically efficient, and to escape from that pressure of 
want which hampers the development of his whole 
nature. 

There is Intellectual progress — an increase in 
knowledge, a greater abundance of ideas, the training 
to think, and think correctly, the growth in capacity 



IV WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 85 

for dealing with practical problems, the cultivation of 
the power to enjoy the exercise of thought and the 
pleasures of letters and art. 

There is Moral progress, a thing harder to define, 
but which includes the development of those emotions 
and habits which make for happiness — contentment 
and tranquillity of mind, the absence of the more purely 
animal and therefore degrading vices (such as intem- 
perance and sensuality in its other forms), the control 
of the violent passions, good-will and kindliness toward 
others — in fact all the things which fall within the 
philosophical conception of a life guided by right rea- 
son. People have different ideas of what constitutes 
happiness and virtue, but these things are at any rate 
included in every such conception. 

A further preliminary question arises. Is human 
progress to be estimated as respects the point to which 
it raises the few who have high mental gifts and the 
opportunity of obtaining an education fitting them for 
intellectual enjoyment and intellectual vocations, or is 
it to be measured by the amount of its extension to and 
diffusion through each nation, meaning the nation as a 
whole — the average man as well as the superior 
spirits ? You may sacrifice either the many to the few 
— as was done by slavery — or the few to the many, 
or the advance may be general and proportionate in all 
classes. 

Again, when we think of Progress, are we to think 
of the world as a whole, or only of the stronger and 
more capable races and states? If the stronger rise 
upon the prostrate bodies of the weaker, is this clear 
gain to the world, because the stronger will ultimately 
do more for the world, or is the loss and suffering of 
the weaker to be brought into the account? I do not 
attempt to discuss these questions. It is enough to 



86 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

note them as fit to be remembered; for perhaps all three 
kinds of progress ought to be differently judged if a 
few leading nations only are to be regarded, or if we 
are to think of all mankind. 

Now let us address ourselves to history. Does his- 
tory show that progress has come more through and 
by war or through and by peace? It would be tedious 
to pursue an examination of the question all down the 
annals of mankind from the days when authentic 
records begin; but we may take a few of those salient 
instances to which the advocates of the war doctrine 
and those of the peace doctrine would appeal as sus- 
taining their respective theses. Let us divide these 
instances into four classes, as follows : 

(i) Instances cited to show that War promotes 
Progress. 

(2) Instances cited to show that Peace has failed to 
promote Progress. 

(3) Instances cited to show that War has failed to 
promote Progress. 

(4) Instances cited to show that Peace promotes 
Progress. 

I begin with the cases in which war is alleged to have 
been the cause of progress. 

It is undeniable that war has often been accompanied 
by an advance in civilization. If we were to look for 
progress only in times of peace there would have been 
little progress to discover, for mankind has lived in a 
state of practically continuous warfare. The Egyptian 
and Assyrian monarchs were always fighting. The 
Book of Samuel speaks of spring as the time when 
kings go forth to battle, much as we should speak of 
autumn as the time when men go forth to shoot deer. 

IIoAejU,os <j>vcrei virap-^ei 7rpos airdaas ras 71-oAeis, 1 said PlatO. 
1 War is the natural relation of states to one another. 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 87 

Things have not greatly improved since those distant 
days, though latterly men have become accustomed to 
think of peace as the normal, war as the abnormal or 
exceptional, relation of states to one another. In the 
ancient world, as late as the days of Roman conquest, 
a state of peace was the rare exception among civilized 
states as well as barbarous tribes. But Carthage, like 
her Phoenician mother-city, went on building up a 
mighty commerce till Rome smote her down, and the 
Hellenic people, in its many warring cities, went on 
producing noble poems and profound philosophical 
speculations, and rearing majestic temples and adorning 
them with incomparable works of sculpture, in the in- 
tervals of their fighting with their neighbours of the 
same and other races. The case of the Greeks proves 
that War and Progress are compatible. Whoever 
visits Sicily and the coasts of the Aegean cannot but be 
struck by the thought that it was in the midst of war- 
fare that the majestic buildings of these regions were 
erected at enormous cost. 

The case of Rome is still more often dwelt upon. 
Her material greatness was due to the conquests which 
made her mistress of the world. She also achieved 
intellectual greatness in her poets and orators and 
jurists, and by her literature and her laws contributed 
immensely to the progress of mankind. How far are 
these achievements to be credited to that long course of 
conquest ? 

The Temple of Janus had stood open as a sign of 
war for two hundred years, when it was closed by 
Augustus in 29 B.C. to indicate the general peace he 
had established. The spirit of the Roman people was 
sustained at a high level by military triumphs, as dis- 
cipline and the capacity for organization and united 
national action were also engendered and sustained. 



88 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

But it is to be noted that, although the Romans had 
shown great political intelligence in creating and work- 
ing their curiously complex constitution, their literary 
production attained no high level until Hellenic influ- 
ences had worked upon it. To these influences, more 
than to any material causes, its excellence is due. Nor 
did the creative epoch last long. War continued; but 
production declined both in letters and in art after the 
days of the great warrior Trajan, though there was 
more fighting than ever. The waning strength of the 
Empire, as well as the economic decay of Italy, has been 
justly attributed in large measure to the exhaustion by 
warfare of the old Italian stock. 

In the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, 
when civilization had greatly advanced in southern and 
western Europe, the phenomena of ancient Greece were 
repeated. Incessant wars between the cities of Italy 
did not prevent the growth of a brilliant literature and 
an even more brilliant art. It is, however, to be noted 
that, while the fighting was universal, the literature was 
confined to comparatively few centres, and there were 
places like the Neapolitan South, in which high artistic 
talent was rare. There is nothing in Italian history to 
show any causal connection between intellectual activity 
and the practice of war. The same may be said of 
France. The best work in literature and art was done 
in a time of comparative tranquillity under Louis XIV., 
not in the more troubled days of the Hundred Years' 
War with England and of the religious wars of the 
sixteenth century. 

The capital instance of the association of war with 
the growth and greatness of a state is found in Prussia. 
One may say that her history is the source of the whole 
thesis and the basis of the whole argument. It is a 
case of what, in the days when the students of my 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 89 

generation were learning logic at the University of 
Oxford, we used to call the " induction from a single 
instance." Prussia, then a small state, began her up- 
ward march under the warlike and successful prince 
whom her people call the Great Elector. Her next 
long step to greatness was taken by Frederick II., again 
by a course of successful warfare, though doubtless also 
by means of a highly organized, and, for those days, 
very efficient administration. Voltaire said of Fred- 
erick's Prussia that its trade was war. The close of 
the Napoleonic wars further enlarged her territory. 
Three successful wars — those of 1864, 1866, and 
1870-71 — made her the nucleus of a united German 
nation and the leading military power of the Old 
World. 

Ever since those victories her industrial production, 
her commerce, and her wealth have rapidly increased, 
while at the same time scientific research has been prose- 
cuted with the greatest vigour and on a scale unprece- 
dentedly large. These things were no doubt achieved 
during a peace of forty-three years. But it was what 
one may call a belligerent peace, full of thoughts of 
war and preparations for war. There is no denying 
that the national spirit has been carried to a high point 
of pride, energy, and self-confidence, which have stimu- 
lated effort in all directions and secured extraordinary 
efficiency in civil as well as in military administration. 
Here, then, is an instance in which a state has grown 
by war and a people has been energized by war. 

But before drawing any conclusions from this soli- 
tary instance three questions must be asked: 

Will the present conflict be attended by such a suc- 
cess as to lead the Prussian people to approve the policy 
which this war spirit has inspired? 

Even supposing that the nation is not defeated and 



9 o ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

humbled in the struggle, may not its material pros- 
perity be thrown back and its internal tranquillity im- 
paired? 

May not the national character turn out to have suf- 
fered a declension which it will take long to cure? 

Results cannot be judged at the moment. What 
people was ever prouder of its world-dominion than 
the Romans at the time of Augustus? Yet the seeds 
of decline were already sown. Within a century, men 
like Tacitus had begun to note the signs of a slowly 
approaching dissolution, and within two centuries more 
the dissolution was at hand. To this it may be added 
that the advance of any single state by violent methods 
may involve greater harm to the world than the bene- 
fits which that state expects to gain for itself, or than 
those which it proposes to confer upon its neighbours 
by imposing its civilization upon them. 

I pass to another set of cases, those in which it is 
argued that the absence of war has meant the absence 
of progress. Such cases are rare, because so few 
countries have enjoyed, or had the chance of suffering 
from, periods of long peace. Two, however, may be 
referred to. One is supplied by the Spanish dominions 
in America from the middle of the sixteenth till the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth century, when they threw off 
the yoke of the mother-country. These vast countries, 
stretching from California to Patagonia, lay lapped in 
a peace disturbed only by the occasional raids of Dutch 
or British sea-rovers, and by skirmishes, rarely severe, 
with native Indian tribes. The Spanish colonies cer- 
tainly did stagnate, and made no sensible advance either 
materially or intellectually. But peace was not the 
cause of their stagnation. It may be easily explained 
by the facts that they were ruled by a government at 
once autocratic and incapable, and that they lived so 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 91 

far from the European world of ideas as to be hardly 
affected by its vivifying influences. Such causes were 
amply sufficient to arrest progress. 

The other case, often cited, is that of China. She is 
supposed to have become flaccid, feeble, immovably 
conservative, because her people, long unaccustomed 
to war, have contracted a pacific temper. In this 
statement there is some exaggeration, for there has 
always been a good deal of fighting on the outskirts of 
the, Chinese Empire; and in the Tae Ping insurrection 
forty years ago millions of men are said to have been 
killed. It must also be remembered that in Art, at 
least — one of the activities in which the Chinese hold 
a leading place — there have been frequent changes 
and some brilliant revivals during the centuries of 
peace. China reached in comparatively early times a 
civilization very remarkable on its moral and intel- 
lectual as well as on its material side. That her sub- 
sequent progress was slow, sometimes hardly discern- 
ible, is mainly attributable to her complete isolation, 
with no nation near her from which she had anything 
to learn, because the tribes to the southwest and west 
— tribes constantly occupied in war — were far in- 
ferior to her. Lucky has it been for the rest of the 
world that her three hundred and fifty millions, belong- 
ing to a race both physically strong and capable of 
discipline, have been of a pacific temper, valuing trade 
and industry, artistic creation and skill in literary com- 
position, as objects worthier of man than martial 
prowess. 

Whoever travels among the Chinese sees that, peace- 
ful as they are, they are anything but a decadent or 
exhausted race. Nor is it idle to remark that the 
Japanese, a really military people, had during many 
centuries made no more progress than their Chinese 



92 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

teachers, and for the same reason: viz. that they had 
remained, down to our own time, cut oft, and that by 
their own wish, from all the stimulating influences which 
the white races were exerting upon one another. 

Next, let us take the cases which show that there have 
been in many countries long periods of incessant war 
with no corresponding progress in the things that make 
civilization. I will not speak of peoples tribally or- 
ganized, among the more advanced of which may be 
placed the Albanians and the Pathans and the Turko- 
mans, while among the more backward were the North 
American Indians and the Zulus. But one may cite the 
case of the civilized regions of Asia under the successors 
of Alexander, when civilized peoples, distracted by in- 
cessant strife, did comparatively little for the progress 
of arts or letters or government, from the death of the 
great conqueror till they were united under the domin- 
ion of Rome and received from her a time of almost 
unbroken tranquillity. 

The Thirty Years' War is an example of long-con- 
tinued fighting, which, far from bringing progress in 
its train, inflicted injuries on Germany from which 
she did not recover for nearly two centuries. Nearer 
our times, there has been more fighting in South and 
Central America, since the Wars of Independence, than 
in any other civilized countries. Yet can any one say 
that anything has been gained by the unending civil 
wars and revolutions, or those scarcely less frequent 
conflicts between the several republics, like that terrible 
one thirty years ago in which Peru was overcome by 
Chile? Or look at Mexico. Except during the years 
when the stern dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz kept order 
and equipped the country with roads and railways, her 
people have made no perceptible advance, and stand 
hardly higher to-day than when they were left to work 



lv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 93 

out their own salvation a hundred years ago. Social 
and economic conditions have doubtless been against 
her. Allihat need be remembered is that warfare has 
not bettered those conditions, or improved the national 
character. 

Last of all we come to cases in which periods of 
peace have been attended by an increase in national 
prosperity and by intellectual development. These 
periods have been few and generally short, for (as 
already observed) war has been everywhere the rule 
and peace the exception. Nevertheless, one may point 
to instances like that of the comparative order and re- 
pose which England enjoyed after the Wars of the 
Roses. There were some foreign wars under the 
Tudors; there were brilliant achievements and adven- 
tures on the seas. There were some few internal re- 
volts under Elizabeth. But the great bulk of the na- 
tion was left free to prosper by agriculture and trade 
and to produce great writers. It was the century of 
More and Bacon and Harvey, of Sidney and Spencer 
and Shakespeare. Two similar instances are furnished 
by the rapid progress of Scotland after the Revolution 
of 1688-89 gave her internal peace, and the similar 
progress of Norway from 18 14 till our own days. 
The annals of Switzerland since 18 15 and those of 
Belgium since her creation in 1832 have shown that a 
peace maintained during two generations is compatible, 
not only with the rapid growth of industrial prosperity, 
but also with the preservation of a courageous and 
patriotic spirit, ready to face the dangers of war. 

IV 

If this hasty historical survey has, as I frankly admit, 
given us few positive and definite results, the reason 
is plain. Human progress is affected by so many con- 



/ 



94 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

ditions besides the presence or absence of fighting, that ! 
it is impossible in any given case to pronounce that it 
has been chiefly due either to war or to peace. Two 
conclusions, however, we may claim to have reached, 
though they are rather negative than positive. One is [ 
that war does not necessarily arrest progress. Peo- 
ples may advance in thought, literature, and art while 
they are fighting. The other is that war cannot be 
shown to have been a cause of progress in anything 
except the wealth or material power of a state which 
extends its dominions by conquest or fills its coffers by 
tribute extorted from the vanquished. 

In those cases, however, where the victorious state 
has gained materially, there are two other things to be 
considered. One is the possible loss to the conqueror 
of the good-will of other nations who may reprobate 
its methods or fear its aggressive tendencies. Another 
is the political injury it may suffer by sacrificing, as usu- 
ally happens with military states, its domestic freedom 
to its achievements in war, or the moral injury which 
the predominance of warlike ideals is apt to bring to 
national character. And if we extend our view to take 
in the general gain or loss to world-progress, the bene- 
fits reaped by the victorious state may be more than 
counterbalanced by the harm inflicted on the van- 
quished. When the Macedonian kings destroyed the 
freedom of Greece, did not mankind lose far more 
than Macedon gained? 

The weakness of the argument which recommends 
and justifies war by the suggestion that it is by war that 
the foremost races and states have established their 
position may be very briefly stated. War has been 
practically universal. All the races and states have 
fought, some better, some worse. The best fighters 
have not always succeeded, for they may have been I 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 95 

fewer in number. There is no necessary connection 
between fighting quality and intellectual quality. True 
it is that some of the intellectually gifted peoples have 
also been warlike peoples. The Greeks were; so are 
the French and Germans. But the Turks, who are 
good fighters, are good for nothing else; and the dull 
Spartans fought better, on land at least, than the 
bright Athenians. Where the gift for fighting goes 
with the gift for thought, the success achieved by the 
intellectual race in war is not a result but a symptom, 
an indication or evidence of an exceptional natural 
force. Those races and states that are now in the 
front rank of civilization have shown their capacity in 
many other fields besides that of war, and at other 
times than when they were fighting. All that can safely 
be said to be proved by history is that a race which 
cannot fight or will not fight when a proper occasion 
arises, as, for instance, when it has to vindicate its in- 
dependence, is likely to go down, and be subjected or 
absorbed. Yet the fact that a state is subjected or 
absorbed does not prove its inferiority. There is no 
poetical justice in history. The highly gifted race 
may be small, like Israel, or too much divided to main- 
tain itself against heavy odds, like the Hellenes of 
antiquity. From 1490 to 1560 Italy was the prey of 
foreign invaders; but she was doing more for human 
progress in art and letters than all the other European 
nations put together. 

So far, then, our inquiry has shown two things. 
One is the worthlessness of the biological analogy — 
for it is only an analogy — between animated nature 
and human society, based upon what is called the 
Struggle for Life and the Survival of the Fittest. The 
other is the weakness of the arguments drawn from 
history to prove war necessary to progress. 



96 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 



Let us now, in conclusion, try to approach the ques- 
tion in another way. Let us ask what are the conse- 
quences which seem naturally to flow from the devotion 
to war of a nation's gifts and powers, whether physical 
or intellectual. Reverting to the distinction already 
drawn between Material, Intellectual, and Moral prog- 
ress, let us see what are the consequences to be ex- 
pected in each of these spheres from that process of 
killing an enemy and capturing or destroying his prop- 
erty which we call War, and how far they will make for 
the general progress of mankind. 

Materially regarded, War is Destruction. It is the 
destruction of those who are killed, and the reduction, 
by maiming or disease, of the physical working power 
of the combatants who survive. It is thus a diminu- 
tion of the wealth-producing capacity of the combatant 
nations, whether they be victors or vanquished. It 
means also the destruction of articles of value, such as 
crops, railways, bridges, and other buildings, and the 
contents of buildings, including works of art and libra- 
ries. It is an interruption of international trade as well 
as of production, and therefore a cutting-off, for the 
time being, of that other source of gain which consists 
in an exchange of commodities produced better or 
more cheaply in one country than they can be in an- 
other. It involves a further lessening of wealth by the 
withdrawal from their productive activities of a large 
number of workers, not only during the actual fighting, 
but during the time spent in being trained to fight. All 
these results mean waste of resources and the impover- 
ishment of a nation, with a corresponding shock to its 
credit. 

Against these losses there may be set, in the case of 



iv WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 97 

a conquering country, what it acquires by seizure of 
property, annexation of territory, levying of contribu- 
tions and of indemnities, although these forcibly gotten 
gains do not always prosper. There may also be new 
openings to foreign trade, and victory may evoke an 
enterprising spirit which will push that trade with new 
vigour. But such possible indirect benefits are usually 
far outweighed by the direct loss. 

Another loss is also to be considered in estimating 
the effects of war on a nation. There is not only the 
diminution of the population by death in battle, but 
also the reduced vigour and efficiency of the next gen- 
eration. Those who are killed are presumably the 
strongest and healthiest men, for it is these who are the 
first to be drafted into the fighting forces; and it is the 
best regiments that suffer most, because they are 
selected for the most critical and perilous enterprises. 
Thus, that part of the nation which is best fitted to have 
a vigorous progeny perishes, and the births of children 
during, and long after, the war will be chiefly from a 
male parenthood of a quality below that of the average 
as it stood before the war. The physique of the 
French people is said to have suffered palpably from the 
tremendous drain of the strongest men into the armies 
of the Revolution and of Napoleon. 

In the sphere of intellectual life, the obvious effect 
of war is to turn the thoughts of a large part of the 
nation toward military and naval topics. Inventors 
busy themselves with those physical and chemical re- 
searches which promise results profitable for war. 
Such researches may incidentally lead to discoveries of 
value in other fields, just as the practice of military 
surgery in the field may advance surgical science in 
general. But the main effect must be to distract from 
pure science, and from the applications of science to 



98 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

industry, minds that might have done better work for 
the world in those fields of activity. In general, the 
thought of a people that delights in war will be occu- 
pied with material considerations; and while the things 
of the body will be prized, the things of the mind will 
be disparaged, save in so far as they make for military 
success. A fighting caste will be formed, imposing its 
peculiar ideals on the people; the standards of value 
will become more and more practical, and the interest 
in pure truth and in thought and art for their own sake 
may decline. 

These are conditions not favourable to progress in 
the higher forms of literary or scientific work. Against 
them is to be set that stimulus which a great war is held 
to give to the whole life of a people. When it rouses 
them to the maximum of effort, and gives them the 
strongest consciousness of national unity, it may also 
— so we hear it argued — invigorate them for intel- 
lectual creation. It would be rash to deny this possi- 
bility, but no one seems to have succeeded in tracing any 
causal relation between war and the production of great 
work in art and letters. They have often coincided, 
but each has often appeared without the other. 

Note also how misleading it may be to apply the 
doctrine of Natural Selection to the phenomena of 
human society, even so far as it may safely be applied 
in zoology. Within a nation it is not strength alone, 
whether physical or intellectual, that brings success. 
The power of self-control, the talent of co-operating 
with others, the capacity for inspiring confidence, are no 
less important both in securing influence for the pos- 
sessor of these gifts and in contributing to the unity 
and energy of a nation. Similarly a nation's vitality 
consists not only in the physical and mental powers of 



,v WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 99 

its members, but also in their moral qualities, their 
patriotism, their capacity for devotion and self-sacrifice, 
their good faith and uprightness, their respect for law 
as law — qualities to which the Romans, for instance, 
were wont to ascribe their greatness. Natural Selec- 
tion assumes the rule of Force. But Force and Law 
are opposed: Force Worship is the negation of Right 
expressed in Law, and those who have been taught to 
contemn Right and to put their trust in Force may not 
only injure themselves, but raise up fears and hatreds 
against them in their neighbour nations. 

As respects the ethical side of life, soldiering and 
the preparation for soldiering produce a type of charac- 
ter marked by discipline and the habit of obedience. 
The Spartans were in the ancient world the example of 
a people who excelled in these qualities, uniting to 
them, however, an equally marked insensibility to the 
charms of poetry and art. They produced no literar 
ture, and seemed to value none except martial songs. 
Discipline has its worth, but it may imply some loss of 
individuality; obedience is useful, but (except with the 
highly intelligent) it involves some loss of initiative. 
If it increases physical courage, it may depress that 
moral courage which recognizes allegiance to Right 
rather than to the Might of the State. War gives op- 
portunities for the display, by those serving in the field, 
of some exalted virtues, such as courage, self-sacrifice, 
devotion to the common cause. So, likewise, does re- 
ligious persecution, but we do not therefore persecute. 
Tennyson, writing his Maud at the beginning of the 
Crimean War, seems to have expected these virtues to 
be evoked by that war, to pervade the whole people, 
and to effect a moral regeneration of Britain. Did 
that happen ? And if it happened, did it endure ? Did 



ioo ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

it happen in other countries where it was expected, as, 
for instance, in the United States after the Civil War? 
Is such regeneration a natural fruit of war? 

The courage and the patriotism of those who fight 
are splendid, but we have to think of the nation as a 
whole, non-combatants as well as combatants. May 
not much depend on the causes which have brought 
about an appeal to arms and the motives which inspire 
the combatants? A war of oppression, stimulated by 
national pride and ambition, may have a different moral 
effect from one that is undertaken to repel a wanton 
attack, to defend an innocent neutral state, to save 
peaceful peoples from a danger to their liberties, and 
protect the whole world from a menace to the sacred 
principles of justice and humanity. 

Believing the war we are now waging to be such a 
war, we cannot but hope that the unspeakable sufferings 
and sorrows it has brought to nearly every home in 
Britain may be largely compensated by a purifying of 
the heart, an increased spirit of self-sacrifice, and a rais- 
ing of our national and personal ideals. 

On a review of the whole matter, it will appear that 
war, since it is destruction, does not increase, but re- 
duces, national wealth, and therefore cannot be a direct 
cause of material progress. As it exalts physical 
strength and the principle of Force as against the mind 
and the love of truth and the pleasures of thought and 
knowledge, war, except so far as the particular depart- 
ment of military science is concerned, cannot be deemed 
a cause of intellectual progress. As it depresses the 
individual and exalts the State, the thing we call Mili- 
tarism places the conception of Might above that of 
Right, and creates a type of character in which the 
harsher, and what one may call the heathen, virtues are 
exalted above those which the Gospel has taught and 



IV WAR AND HUMAN PROGRESS 101 

through which the moral elevation of the world has 
been secured. 

What, then, are the causes to which the progress of 
mankind is due? It has come partly, no doubt, if not 
of strife, yet at any rate in the course of competition. 
But the chief cause is the exercise of creative thought in 
the sphere of ideas, in scientific discovery, in inventions. 
Now Thought, as we have seen, is more often hindered 
than helped by war. It is the races that know how to 
think, not the far more numerous races that excel in 
fighting rather than in thinking, that have led the world. 
Thought, in the form of invention and scientific inquiry, 
has given us those improvements in the arts of life and 
in the knowledge of nature by which material progress 
and comfort have been obtained. Thought has pro- 
duced literature, philosophy, art, and (when intensified 
by emotion) religion — the chief things that make life 
worth living. Now, the thought of any people is most 
active when it is brought into contact with the thought 
of another, because each is apt to lose its variety and 
freedom to play when it has worked too long upon 
familiar lines and flowed too long in the channels it has 
deepened. Hence, Isolation retards progress, while 
Intercourse quickens it. 

The great creative epochs have been those in which 
one people of natural vigour received an intellectual 
impulse from the ideas of another, as happened when 
Greek culture began to penetrate Italy, and, thirteen 
centuries later, when the literature of the ancients began 
to work on the nations of the mediaeval world. 

Such contact, with the process of learning which 
follows from it, may happen in or through war, but it 
happens far oftener in peace; and it is in peace that 
men have the time and the taste to profit fully by it. 
A study of history will show that we may, with an easy 



102 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSFS chap, iv 

conscience, dismiss the doctrine of Treitschke — that 
war is a health-giving tonic which Providence must be 
expected constantly to offer to the human race for its 
own good. The spirit which every class in the com- 
munity has shown, since August 19 14, in volunteering 
to fight and in fighting has shown that a long peace does 
not impair the courage and the valour of a people. 1 
Apart altogether from the hopes we entertain for the 
victory in this war of a cause which we believe to be 
just, we may desire in the interests of all mankind that 
its issue should discredit by defeat a theory which is 
noxious as well as baseless. The future progress of 
mankind is to be sought, not through the strifes and 
hatreds of the nations, but rather by their friendly co- 
operation in the healing and enlightening works of 
peace, and in the growth of a spirit of friendship and 
mutual confidence which may remove the causes of war. 

1 The same may now (1918) be said of the people of the Uaited States. 



CHAPTER V 

[This and the following chapter contain two Annual 
Presidential addresses delivered in 19 15 and 19 16 to 
the British Academy for the promotion of historical, 
philological, and philosophical studies, with the omis- 
sion of those parts which related to the work done by 
the Academy itself during the two years preceding, 
viz. the undertakings it directs, the papers read before 
it, and the lectures delivered on the foundations it ad- 
ministers, together with the obituary notices of Fellows 
deceased. These general portions of the two addresses 
were first published in 19 16 by the desire of the Council 
of the British Academy. They treat of certain aspects 
of the present war, and of war in general, which have 
an interest for historians and for students of human 
nature. 

References to current political issues, national or in- 
ternational, are necessarily absent, because those topics 
lie outside the scope of the Academy's functions, and 
are never discussed at its meetings.] 

Presidential Address delivered to the British 

Academy, June 30, 19 15 

In the scantiness of a record of work done in the 
fields which the Academy cultivates, it might be ex- 
pected that I should offer to you some remarks on the 
war itself, the causes that produced it, the antagonisms, 
deeper than most people supposed, which it has re- 
vealed, and the changes it is likely to involve. But 
many of you will have felt, and all will admit, the 

103 



104 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

dangers that surround any one who, influenced by 
strong emotions and possessing imperfect knowledge, 
should now commit to print his judgment of the events 
of the last eleven months. Every one among us must 
sometimes have had cause to regret, when reading them 
years afterwards, words which he wrote in the heat 
of the moment. Time modifies our judgments as it 
cools our passions. Neither the friendships nor the 
enmities of nations are exempt from change. You re- 
member how Ajax, in the drama of Sophocles, says that 
he has learnt 

o t* ex#pos VP-w & roaovh' ex#apTeos 
a>S Kal cf>i\rj(T(DV avdi<s- 

I am, however, in any case debarred by the rules and 
practice of the Academy from entering the field of 
current politics. It is better that nothing should be 
said to-day in an address to the Academy which any one 
of its members, to whatever country he may belong, 
would feel pain in reading ten or twenty years hence. 
Newspapers and pamphlets will convey to posterity 
sufficiently, and even more than sufficiently, the notions 
and fancies and passions of the moment. 

What we may do, not without profit, is to note and 
to set down in a spirit of detachment the impressions 
made upon us by the events which our eyes see and 
watch as they pass into history. Many a pen will for 
centuries to come be occupied by the events of this year, 
and endless controversies will arise over them. It is 
well that whoever has gained from his studies some- 
thing of an historical sense should in the spirit proper 
to an historian place on record from month to month 
the impressions he receives. The record will be almost 
as useful if the impressions should turn out to be er- 
roneous as if they should be confirmed by subsequent 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 105 

events, because what the future historian will desire to 
know is not only what happened but what people be- 
lieved and thought at the time it was happening. That 
which is omitted has also its value. Fifty years hence 
men will be struck by the significance of things whose 
significance was not perceived by contemporary observ- 
ers, and will seek to know why those observers failed 
to see or comprehend facts which will then stand out in 
bold relief. 

So let me now try to enumerate briefly what are the 
facts of the present situation by which we are chiefly 
impressed — facts that make it novel as well as ter- 
rible. 

The first fact is the immense width and range of the 
war. Thucydides observed that men always thought 
the war they were then engaged in the greatest that had 
ever befallen. But here we have facts which show how 
much the present conflict does transcend any seen in 
previous ages. This might have been foretold twenty 
years ago, assuming that Russia, Germany, and Britain 
were involved, seeing how vast are the possessions and 
claims and ambitions of all three States. Yet the 
reality goes far beyond every forecast. All the six 
great European Powers and four lesser Powers are 
involved. 1 So is the whole extra-European Old 
World, except China and Persia and the possessions of 
Holland and Portugal. In the New World it is only 
the Dominions and Colonies of Britain that are as 
yet affected — a noteworthy illustration of the sever- 
ance of the Western hemisphere from the broils of the 
Eastern. 

Secondly. There is the prodigious influence of the 

1 Since this was written three other European Powers have entered the war, 
the Portuguese colonies have also become involved, and not only the United 
States, with its population exceeding one hundred millions, but Brazil and 
Cuba also have followed. 



106 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES csap. 

war upon neutral nations. This also might have been 
foreseen as a result of the development of world com- 
merce and the interlockings of world finance. But here 
too, the actual results are transcending expectation. 

Thirdly. The changes in the methods and character 
of war have been far more extensive than in any pre- 
vious period. It took much more than two centuries 
from the invention of gunpowder for musketry and 
artillery to supersede completely archery and defensive 
armour. The long pike, after having been used for 
some twenty-five centuries at least, was still in use as 
late as the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and to a slight ex- 
tent in the abortive rising of 1848. War, however, is 
now a totally different thing from what it was in the 
campaign of 1870—71, or even in the war between Rus- 
sia and Japan of 1904. Chemistry has changed every- 
thing by increasing the range and the power of missiles, 
while electricity, without the wire, supplies new means 
of communication not only along battle lines, but across 
hostile territory. So the application of photography 
to war has enabled the position of enemy entrenchments 
or forces to be so located that artillery can now play 
effectively upon spots which those who direct the fire 
cannot see. Warfare in the air and warfare under the 
sea were heretofore mere dreams. 

Fourthly. The cost of war is greater in proportion 
to the size of armies, immensely larger as these armies 
are, than it ever was before. The ten belligerent 
European Powers are estimated to be spending now 
more than ten millions sterling a day. 1 At this rate 
their total expenditure for twelve months could not be 
less than 4000 millions, and may be much more. But 
some competent economists put it at 5000 millions, 
figures which are hardly more realizable by us than are 

1 This sum was subsequently much exceeded. 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 107 

those which express the distances of the fixed stars. 

Fifthly. In each nation the whole body of the peo- 
ple is more fully and more hotly interested in, and 
united by, this war than by any it ever waged before. 
During the eighteenth century it was in most countries 
only the monarch and the ruling class that knew or 
cared what was happening. The great European con- 
flict that began in 1793 brought a change. But this 
war is far more intensely national, in the sense that it 
has roused the animosities of the whole of each people 
from top to bottom, than any preceding conflict, and it 
is everywhere waged with a sterner purpose. In this 
respect we are reminded of the citizen wars of the small 
city-states of ancient Greece and Italy, and of the 
Italian Middle Ages. 

Sixthly. Some grave moral issues have been raised 
more sharply than before. Is a state above morality? 
Does the plea of military necessity (of which the State 
itself is apparently to be the judge) entitle it to disre- 
gard the rights of other states? (Cf. Thucydides v. 
84-113, the case of Melos.) 

Seventhly. The predictions that the vast interests 
involved, the increasing strength of defence as opposed 
to attack, and the growth of a general pacific sentiment, 
would avert strife have all proved fallacious. The 
wisdom of the wise, where is it now? Many supposed 
that the great financiers would be able to avert hostili- 
ties, and would think it their interest to do so. Some 
twelve years ago Jean de Bloch, in a book that made a 
great impression at the time, argued that the growing 
difficulties of conducting military operations on a vast 
scale might not only make war a longer and far more 
costly business than ever before, but even prove an 
effective deterrent. More recently an accomplished 
and persuasive English writer has shown how much 



108 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

more a nation has to lose by war than it can possibly 
gain even if victory crown its arms. Others have 
thought that a sense of solidarity among the workers in 
each industrial country would be strong enough to re- 
strain their governments from any but a purely defen- 
sive war. Others, again, have declared that democra- 
cies are essentially peaceful, because the mass of the 
people pay in their blood, other classes merely in their 
wealth. I do not say that these arguments are un- 
sound, but the forces they rely upon have not proved 
strong enough for the occasion. For practical pur- 
poses the wisdom of the wise has been brought to 
naught, because the rulers of the nations have been 
guided by other motives than those of pure reason. 

These observations relate to the palpable facts we 
have witnessed. Let us turn now to some of the reflec- 
tions which the facts suggest. It is not easy to express 
these with that cold detachment at which the historian 
is bound to aim; but the effort must be made. 

On that reflection which rose first to our minds when 
the war began, and which continues to be the sombre 
background to every aspect it presents — upon this I 
will not pause. After more than forty centuries of 
civilization and nineteen centuries of Christianity, man- 
kind — in this case at least three-fourths of mankind — 
is settling its disputes in the same way as mankind did 
in the Stone Age. The weapons are more various and 
more destructive. They are the latest product of 
highly developed science. But the spirit and the result 
are the same. 

There has never been a time in which communica- 
tions were so easy, and the means for discovering and 
circulating information so abundant. Yet how little is 
now certainly known as to the real causes which have 
brought about the war. The beliefs current among 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 109 

different peoples are altogether different, not to say con- 
tradictory. Some are almost demonstrably false. 
Even in some neutral nations such as Holland, Switzer- 
land, and Spain, opinion is sharply divided not merely 
about the rights but also about the facts. The whole 
German people seem to hold just as implicitly that this 
is for them a defensive war as the French hold the 
opposite; and however clear the main points may ap- 
pear to us in Britain, there are others which may remain 
obscure for many years to come. 

How few are the persons in every state in whose 
hands lie the issues of war and peace ! In some of the 
now belligerent countries the final and vital decisions 
were taken by four or five persons only, in others by six 
or seven only. Even in Britain decision rested practi- 
cally with less than twenty-five, for though some few 
persons outside the Cabinet took a part, not all within 
the Cabinet are to be reckoned as effective factors. It 
is of course true that popular sentiment has to be con- 
sidered, even in states more or less despotically gov- 
erned. Against a strong and definite sentiment of the 
masses the ruling few would not venture to act. But 
the masses are virtually led by a few, and their opinion 
is formed, particularly at a crisis, by the authority and 
the appeals of those few whom they have been accus- 
tomed to trust or to obey. And after all, the vital 
decision at the vital moment remains with the few. If 
they had decided otherwise than they did, the thing 
would not have happened. Something like it might 
have happened later, but the war would not have come 
then and so. 

How rapidly do vast events move, how quickly are 
vast decisions taken ! In the twelve fatal days from 
July 23 to August 4 there was no time for reflection. 
Telegrams between seven capitals flew hither and 



no ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

thither like swift arrows crossing one another, and it 
would have needed a mind of more than human ampli- 
tude and energy to grasp and correlate all the issues 
involved and to foresee the results that would follow 
the various lines of action possible in a game so compli- 
cated. Even the intellect of a Caesar or a Bonaparte 
would have been unequal to the task. Here the tele- 
graph has worked for evil. Had the communications 
passed by written dispatches, as they would have done 
eighty years ago, it is probable that war might have 
been avoided. 

Sometimes one feels as if modern states were grow- 
ing too huge for the men to whom their fortunes are 
committed. Mankind increases in volume, and in ac- 
cumulated knowledge, and in a comprehension of the 
forces of nature; but the intellects of individual men do 
not grow. The power of grasping and judging in their 
entirety the far greater mass of facts to be dealt with, 
the far more abundant resources at command, the far 
vaster issues involving the weal or woe of masses of 
men — this power fails to follow. . The disproportion 
between the individual ruling men with their personal 
prejudices and proclivities, their selfish interests and 
their vanities, and the immeasurable consequences 
which follow their individual volitions, becomes more 
striking and more tragic. As the stage expands, the 
figures shrink. There were some advantages in the 
small city-states of antiquity. A single city might de- 
cline or perish, but the nation remained; and another 
city blossomed forth to replace that which had withered 
away. But now enormous nations are concentrated un- 
der one government and its disasters affect the whole. 
A great modern state is like a gigantic vessel built with- 
out any water-tight compartments, which, if it be unskil- 
fully steered, may perish when it strikes a single rock. 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 1 1 1 

How ignorant modern peoples, with all the abundant 
means of information at their disposal, may neverthe- 
less remain of one another's character and purposes! 
Each of the nations now at war has evidently had a 
false notion of its adversaries andmas been thereby mis- 
led. It has not known their inner thoughts, it has mis- 
read their policy. It was said in the days of the Amer- 
ican Civil War that the misconception by the Southern 
States of the Northern States, and their belief that the 
North cared for nothing but the dollar, was the real 
cause why their differences were not peaceably settled, 
and yet they were both members of the same Republic 
and spoke the same language. European nations can- 
not be expected to have quite so intimate a knowledge 
each of the other, yet both their commercial intercourse 
and the activity of the Press and the immensely in- 
creased volume of private travel might have been ex- 
pected to enable them better to gauge and judge one 
another's minds. 

Historians as far back as Thucydides have made 
upon the behaviour of nations in war time many general 
observations, which have been brought out in stronger 
light by what passes from day to day before us. A few 
of these I will mention to suggest how we may turn to 
account the illustrations which Europe now furnishes. 

When danger threatens a nation its habits change. 
Defence becomes the supreme need. In place of the 
ordinary machinery of government there starts up a 
dictatorship like that of early Rome, when twenty-four 
lictors surrounded the magistrate and the tribunician 
veto, with the right of appeal, sank away. The plea 
of public interest overrides everything. The suspen- 
sion of constitutional guarantees is acquiesced in, and 
acts of arbitrary power, even if violent, are welcomed 
because taken as signs of strength in the ruler. Even 



ii2 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

the withholding of information is submitted to. The 
voice of criticism is silenced. Cedit toga armis. The 
soldier comes to the front, speaks with an authority 
greater than that of the civilian statesman, is permitted 
to do whatever he declares to be necessary for the na- 
tion's safety. So long as that is secured, everything 
else is pardoned, and success gives enormous prestige. 

Whoever watches these things must see how danger- 
ous to freedom is war, except in those communities 
where long tradition has rooted constitutional habit 
very deep. In old Greece seditions opened the way to 
the Tyrant. Napoleon supposed that the Duke of 
Wellington would, after Waterloo, have made himself 
master of England. So might a victor of another 
quality have done who had achieved such a triumph as 
Wellington's, had not an ancient monarchy and Parlia- 
ment stood in his way. War is the bane of democra- 
cies. If it be civil war, he who restores peace is ac- 
claimed like Augustus. Even a Louis Napoleon may 
be welcome when he promises security for property. 
If it be foreign war, the man of the sword on horseback 
towers over the man on foot who can only talk and 
administer. 

So those psychological phenomena which former ob- 
servers have noticed when a country is swept by war 
or revolution, have become vividly real to Europe now. 
The same passion seizes on every one simultaneously 
and grows hotter in each by the sense that others share 
it. It is said that when sheep, feeding unherded on a 
mountain, see the approach of a danger they all huddle 
together, the rams on the outside facing the foe. The 
flock becomes one, with one mind, one fear, one rage of 
fear. So in times of danger a human community feels 
and acts like one man. The nation realizes itself so 
vividly that it becomes a law to itself and recks little of 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 113 

the opinion of others. The man is lost in the crowd, 
and the crowd feels rather than thinks. Passion in- 
tensified supersedes the ordinary exercise not only of 
individual will but even of individual reason. Fear 
and anger breed suspicion and credulity. Every one 
is ready to believe the worst of whoever is suspected. 
What is called the power of suggestion rises to such a 
height that to denounce a man is virtually to condemn 
him. Lavoisier is sentenced to be guillotined; he 
pleads that he is a harmless chemist, but is told that the 
Republic does not need chemists. After the death of 
Julius Caesar, Cinna, the poet, is seized, and when he 
protests that he is not Cinna the conspirator, is never- 
theless killed for his name, the bystander (in Shake- 
speare) adding, " Kill him for his bad verses." A 
foreign name is taken to be evidence that its bearer 
is a spy. Grotesquely absurd charges find credence. 
There is no tolerance for difference of opinion, and to 
advance arguments against the reigning sentiment is 
treason. Any tribute to the character or even to the 
intellectual gifts of an enemy is resented. Sentiments 
of humanity towards him are disapproved, unless the 
precaution is taken of expressing these in the exact 
words of Holy Scripture. The rising flame of hatred 
involves not merely the government and armies of the 
enemy, but even the innocent citizens of the hostile coun- 
try. These well-known phenomena are all more or less 
visible in Europe to-day, though in our own country the 
coolness of our temperament and the fact that no in- 
vader has trodden our soil have been presenting them in 
a comparatively mild type. 

The intensification of emotions includes those of a 
religious kind, and these not always in their purest 
form. In most countries it is only the most enlightened 
minds that can refrain from claiming the Deity as their 



ii4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

peculiar protector and taking every victory as a mark of 
His special favour. Modern man seems at such mo- 
ments to have reverted to those primitive ages when 
each tribe fought for its own god and expected its own 
god to fight for it, as Moab called on Chemosh and 
Tyre on Melkarth. True it is that a nation now usu- 
ally argues that Divine protection will be extended to it 
because its cause is just. But as this is announced by 
every nation alike, the result is much the same now as it 
was in the days of Chemosh and Melkarth. Oddly 
enough, the people in whom fanaticism used to be 
strongest are now responding more feebly than ever 
before to the appeal of the Jihad. Is it because the 
Turkish Musulmans have infidel Powers for allies as 
well as for enemies, or because the men who now rule 
Turkey are known to fear God as little as they regard 
man, that this war seems to them less holy than those 
of the centuries in which their conquests were won? 

Upon other symptoms indicating a return to the con- 
ditions of warfare in earlier ages I forbear (for a 
reason already given) to comment. It is more pleasant 
to note that some of the virtues which war evokes have 
never been seen to more advantage. Man has not 
under civilization degenerated in body or in will-power. 
The valour and self-sacrifice shown by the soldiers of 
all the nations have been as conspicuous as ever before. 
The line of heroes that extends from Thermopylae to 
Lucknow might welcome as brothers the warriors of 
to-day, while among those at home, in Britain, and in 
France who have been suffering the loss of sons and 
brothers dearer to them than life itself, there has been a 
dignity of patience and silent resignation worthy of 
Roman Stoics or Christian saints. 

In these and other similar ways we see many a 
feature of human character, many a phase of political 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 115 

or religious life recorded by historians, verified by 
present experience. We can better understand what 
nations become at moments of extreme peril and su- 
preme effort; and those of us who occupy ourselves with 
history find it profitable to note the Present for the 
illumination of the Past. 

But the Future makes a wider appeal. Every one 
feels that after the war we shall see a different world, 
but no one can foretell what sort of a world it will be. 
We all have our fancies, but we know them to be no 
more than fancies, for the possibilities are incalculable. 
Nevertheless it is worth while for each of us to set 
down what are the questions as to the future which 
most occupy the public mind and his own mind. 

Will the effect of this war be to inflame or to damp 
down the military spirit? Some there are who believe 
that the example of those states which had made vast 
preparations for war will be henceforth followed by all 
states, so far as their resources permit, and that every- 
where armies will be larger, navies larger, artillery 
accumulated on a larger scale, so that whatever peace 
may come will be only a respite and breathing-time, to 
be followed by further conflicts till the predominance of 
one state or one race is established. Other observers 
of a more sanguine temper conceive that the outraged 
sentiment of mankind will compel the rulers of nations 
to find some means of averting war in the future more 
effective than diplomacy has proved. Each view is 
held by men of wide knowledge and solid judgment; 
and for each strong arguments can be adduced. 

The effects which the war will have on the govern- 
ment and politics of the contending countries are equally 
obscure, though every one admits they are sure to be 
far-reaching. Those who talk of politics as a science 
may well pause when they reflect how little the experi- 



n6 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

ence of the past enables us to forecast the future of gov- 
ernment, let us say in Germany or in Russia, on the 
hypothesis either of victory or of defeat for one or 
other of the Allied groups. 

Economics approaches more nearly to the character 
of a science than does any other department of inquiry 
in the human as opposed to the physical subjects. Yet 
the economic problems before us are scarcely less dark 
than the political. How long will it take the great 
countries to repair the losses they are now suffering? 
The destruction of capital has probably been three or 
four times as great during these last eleven months as it 
ever was before in so short a period, and it goes on with 
increasing rapidity. It took nearly two centuries for 
Germany to recover from the devastations of the 
Thirty If ears' War, and nearly forty years from the 
end of the Civil War had elapsed before the wealth of 
the Southern States of America had come back to the 
figures of i860. One may expect recovery to be much 
swifter in our days, but the extinction of millions of pro- 
ductive brains and hands cannot fail to retard the 
process, and each of the trading countries will suffer by 
the impoverishment of the others. 

This suggests the gravest of all the questions that 
confront us. How will population be affected in quan- 
tity and in quality? The birth-rate had before 19 14 
been falling in Germany and Britain: it had already so 
fallen in France as only to equal the death-rate. Will 
the withdrawal of those slain or disabled in war quicken 
it? and how long will it take to restore the productive 
industrial capacity of each country? Nearly all the 
students and younger teachers in some of our universi- 
ties have gone to fight abroad, and many of these will 
never return. Who can estimate what is being lost to 
literature and learning and science from the deaths of 



v PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 117 

those whose strong and cultivated intelligence might 
have made great discoveries or added to the store of 
the world's thought? Those who are now perishing 
belong to the most healthy and vigorous part of the 
population, from whom the strongest progeny might 
have been expected. Will the physical and mental en- 
ergy of the generation that will come to manhood thirty 
or forty years hence show a decline? The data for a 
forecast are scanty, for in no previous war has the loss 
of life been so great over Europe as a whole, even in 
proportion to a population very much larger than it was 
a century ago. It is said, I know not with how much 
truth, that the stature and physical strength of the pop- 
ulation of France took long to recover from the losses 
of the wars that lasted from 1793 till 18 14. Niebuhr 
thought that the population of the Roman Empire 
never recovered from the great plague of the second 
century A. D., but war has a more distinctive potency, 
for where it is disease that reduces a people, it is the 
weaker who die, while in war it is the stronger. Our 
friends of the Eugenics Society are uneasy at the pros- 
pect for the belligerent nations. Some of them are try- 
ing to console themselves by dwelling on the excellent 
moral effects that may spring out of the stimulation 
which war gives to the human spirit. What the race 
loses in body it may — so they hope — regain in soul. 
This is a highly speculative anticipation, on which his- 
tory casts no certain light. As to the exaltation of 
character which war service produces in those who 
fight from noble motives, inspired by faith in the justice 
of their cause, there can be no doubt. We see it to-day 
as it has often been seen before. But how far 
does this affect the non-combatant part of each people? 
and how long does the exaltation last? The instance 
nearest to our own time, and an instance which is in so 



n8 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap.v 

far typical that the bulk of the combatants on both sides 
were animated by a true patriotic spirit, is the instance 
of the American War of Secession. It was felt at the 
time to be almost a moral rebirth of the nation. I 
must not venture here and now to inquire how far the 
hopes then expressed were verified by the result: for 
such an inquiry would detain you too long. 

These are some of the questions which it may be 
interesting to set down as rising in our minds now, in 
order that the next generation may the better realize 
what were the thoughts and anxieties of those who 
sought, sine ira, metu, studio, to comprehend the larger 
issues of this fateful time. It is too soon to hope to 
solve the problems that are crowding upon us. But 
we can at least try to see clearly what the problems are, 
and to distinguish between the permanent and the 
temporary, the moral and the material causes that have 
plunged mankind in this abyss of calamity: and we can 
ask one another what are the forces that may help to 
deliver it therefrom. This is a time for raising ques- 
tions, not for attempting to answer them. Before some 
of them can be answered, most of us who are met here 
to-day will have followed across the deep River of For- 
getfulness those who are now giving their lives that 
Britain may live. 



CHAPTER VI 

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE BRITISH 
ACADEMY, JULY 1 4, 1916 

A YEAR ago, in the annual Presidential Address, I men- 
tioned and commended to your reflection a number of 
phenomena which the war had displayed and which 
deserved to be noted by historians, because they cast 
light on divers features of previous wars. To-day I 
will refer to some other such facts; and, in mentioning 
these, will endeavour to observe that well-settled rule 
which in this Academy forbids references to questions 
of current politics. It is a wholesome rule, for one 
who should depart from it might easily be betrayed, 
under the influence of a natural passion, into words that 
would afterwards be regretted. 

One of these phenomena is the shock given to the 
rules of international law. Some of the principles that 
had been thought best established have been virtually 
destroyed. To use an Aeschylean phrase, they have 
been " pierced with as many wounds as a net." It has 
become clear that there are Governments which, when 
they see advantage to be gained by taking a certain 
course, will not be deterred from it by rules of morality 
or law. Nations, and especially the Powers that are 
neutral, are asking whether there is any use in passing 
such rules unless some method can be devised for en- 
forcing them. Is it worth while, when the war has 
ended, to attempt a reconstruction of the fabric of inter- 
national law unless it can be rebuilt upon far firmer 

119 



120 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

foundations ? In war time, it is only the action of neu- 
trals that can effectively punish a belligerent trans- 
gressor. Is there any reason to look for such action? 
One series of breaches in that law is especially deplor- 
able. The respect for the rights of non-combatant 
civilians which had been consecrated by many years of 
practice, and which represented the greatest mitigation 
of the savagery inherent in war that the progress of civ- 
ilization had effected, has now disappeared. We seem 
to have gone back to the brutality of the earlier Middle 
Ages. May this be partly due to the system of what 
is called " The Nation in Arms " ? If all the men of a 
country are set to fight, do they form the habit of think- 
ing not only of all the men but also of the women and 
children in enemy countries as enemies to whom no 
mercy is to be shown? and are they disposed, when they 
enter an enemy country, to treat these civilians as their 
personal foes? With the increase of such cruelties 
hatred also has grown. It is fiercer between the war- 
ring peoples than ever before. In both these respects 
our own soldiers, and those of France and Italy, have 
(as we believe) been so far blameless. But one must 
desire that the strain should not last too long. 

The power of a Government to keep its subjects in 
ignorance of the facts of a war, political as well as 
military, has never seemed so complete. This is all the 
more wonderful in days when the means of learning 
facts through the press are so much more abundant than 
ever before. It is a regrettable fact, because it pre- 
vents the public opinion of a people from acting as it 
ought upon its Government. A remarkable instance of 
this ignorance came lately to our knowledge. No 
single incident of the last two years has made so great 
an impression as the destruction by a torpedo of the 
passenger ship Lusitania. Now a medal was struck 



VI 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 1 2 1 



in Germany, and has been widely distributed there — 
whether or no by the German Government I have been 
unable to ascertain — which represents the Lusitania 
sinking in the ocean. Her fore part is piled high with 
cannons and aeroplanes and other war material. 
Here, moreover, we see a warning given to the his- 
torian who has been apt to rely upon the evidence of 
works of art contemporaneous with the events they 
depict. Suppose that five centuries hence few other 
records of the events of May 1915 have survived, and 
that this medal is then dug up from some ruin. It 
would be appealed to as affording the best kind of 
proof that the Lusitania, which carried no cannons and 
no aeroplanes, was a vessel not only laden, but conspic- 
uously overladen with munitions of war. 

There has never before been a conflict in which such 
efforts were made by belligerents to win the favour of 
neutrals. Able agents have been employed and im- 
mense sums expended in attempts to form public opinion 
through the Press. Such efforts have of course been 
primarily directed towards inducing neutrals to take 
some measure either positively friendly to the belliger- 
ent Power conducting the propaganda or to dissuade it 
from some measure helpful to that Power's enemies. 
In this, however, there is implied a tribute to the im- 
portance of the opinion of the world at large, and a 
recognition of the fact that there is such a thing as a 
moral standard which a nation, even if it deems itself 
absolved by the law of State necessity from obedience to 
such a standard, knows to constitute the basis whereon 
the judgment of neutrals, and of posterity, will be 
founded. 

The ethical problems which this war has raised are 
not new, but in their essence, and sometimes even in 
their form, at least as old as the fifth century B.C., when 



122 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

we find them discussed in ancient Athens. But they 
have been presented on a larger scale, and in a sharper 
way, than perhaps ever before, and the differences be- 
tween the standard recognized as applicable to the indi- 
vidual and that fit to be prescribed for the State have 
been, in one country, worked out more thoroughly as 
parts of a general system of doctrine. It is now asked, 
Have states, in their international relations, any mor- 
ality at all? or are they towards one another merely 
like so many wild beasts, owning no obligations of 
honour or good faith? Is self-preservation the highest 
law of a State's being, entitling it to destroy its neigh- 
bour whenever it conceives this to be the easiest way to 
save itself? If the State has any conscience, any mor- 
ality, what is that morality? How far does it differ 
from the moral principles which are either embodied in 
the law, or recognized by the opinion of each commun- 
ity as applicable to individual citizens within a state? 
If state morality is lower than the morality of the indi- 
vidual, ought it to be raised; and if so, how can it be 
raised? 

If there has been a retrogression, can this be con- 
nected with the substitution of the State as an imper- 
sonal entity for the monarch as a person? In the six- 
teenth century the monarch, if he was not personally a 
base creature, had a certain sense of honour, and was 
amenable not only to the censures of the Church but to 
the dictates of chivalry, which, though chivalry never 
was quite what romancers have painted it, had still a 
certain influence. When the Emperor Charles the 
Fifth put himself in the power of Francis the First of 
France, who had been his enemy (and indeed his pris- 
oner) before, and was to be his enemy again, he reck- 
oned, and not in vain, upon that sense of chivalry. 
Francis himself was not the best kind of knight, but he 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 123 

had been the sovereign and the friend of Bayard, the 
pattern of all knightly virtue. Is any trace of that 
spirit of chivalry left in our time? Or do those who 
now administer a state feel themselves to be like the 
soulless directors of an incorporated company, as com- 
pared with the individual landlord or employer of for- 
mer days, who recognized a sort of quasi-feudal respon- 
sibility for those who tilled his lands or worked at his 
bidding? 

All these are serious questions, and serious not for 
states only, seeing that the individual may come to think 
that the morality (or want of it) which is good enough 
for the State is good enough for himself. 

From noting these phenomena I pass on to a still 
wider question. 

The awful scale of the present war, both in its local 
extension over the globe and in the volume of ruin and 
suffering which it is causing inevitably suggests the 
question: Is this " latest birth of Time " to be taken 
as the last result of civilization ? Must we contemplate 
catastrophes such as that we now see as being likely 
from time to time to recur? Is a future of incessant 
hatred between peoples, or groups of peoples, disposing 
them to inflict economic injury on one another in time 
of peace, and breaking out from time to time in efforts 
to destroy one another in time of war, tke future to 
which mankind, far more numerous than ever before, 
and better provided than ever before with every mate- 
rial comfort and luxury, must henceforth look forward? 

This is a question which has been constantly present 
to our minds for the last two years. It includes three 
points fit to be considered: 

1. What have been the chief causes of war in the 
past? Are they diminishing or increasing? Will they 
further diminish or increase? 



i2 4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

2. Are there any and what forces discernible that 
may tend to counterwork the causes which lead to war, 
and, if so, are these forces that work for peace likely to 
grow? 

3. Can any international machinery be contrived 
calculated to reduce the strength of the forces that 
make for war and to strengthen those that make for 
peace? 

As you have all been reflecting on these questions, it 
is not likely that I shall be able to suggest any new facts 
or thoughts which may not have already crossed your 
minds. All I can do is to try to construct a sort of 
framework into which your ideas may be fitted, or, in 
other words, to bring up for examination certain specific 
points, so that definite issues may stand out and think- 
ing be so far clarified. 

In. following the stream of history downwards from 
its dim and distant sources, one finds it to be a record of 
practically incessant fighting. Some races are fiercer 
than others. But War is the rule, Peace the rare ex- 
ception. To the Greeks war seemed the natural rela- 
tion between states. So it had been before, so it has 
been since. Tribes fought, cities fought, despotic mon- 
archies fought, tiny republics fought, as vast empires 
are fighting to-day. This was so from the very begin- 
ning of our records. The monuments of Egypt and 
Assyria are devoted to war and to worship — generally 
to both, for the warrior king is represented as aided by 
the national gods who give him victory and receive their 
share of the spoils. So it was down through the 
ancient world and through the Middle Ages. 

Intervals of peace have been longer within the last 
two centuries, especially in Europe; but the wars that 
preceded and followed such intervals have been on a 
more terrible scale than those of earlier times. The 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 125 

wars of the French Revolution and those of Napoleon 
covered twenty-three years, with two very short re- 
spites. Since 1852 Europe has seen eight wars; and if 
there be added to these other wars in Asia, Africa, and 
America, not to speak of civil conflicts (one of which, 
in the United States, lasted four years) , very few years 
can be found in which the clash of arms was not some- 
where heard. Thus there is abundant material for 
enumerating the causes of war. 

These causes may be classed as arising either out of 
material interests or out of sentiment. In most cases 
both causes have been operative, though often in un- 
equal measure. 

The causes of the former class include : 

The desire for plunder, including the capture of 
women. 

The desire for land or new settlements, as when the 
Teutonic tribes entered the Roman Empire in the fifth 
century and the Slavonic tribes in the sixth and 
seventh. 

Disputed successions, in which two or more claim- 
ants to a throne have dragged their subjects or follow- 
ers, and sometimes other States also, into the strife. 

Interests in the sphere of commerce and industry, as 
when one state desires to debar another from the trade 
of a region (as Spain tried to debar the English from 
South America), or to reduce another state to com- 
mercial vassalage, as Austria did in the case of Serbia. 
By a curious irony, wars of commerce were often waged 
in a total ignorance of economic principles, and when 
success had been won, it proved to be worthless. 

To the other class, where the motive is one of pas- 
sion or sentiment, may be assigned the following causes 
of war: 

Revenge for some injury to a people or insult to a 



126 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

sovereign, or perhaps only for some defeat suffered in 
a previous conflict. 

The desire of a monarch to win glory. 

Religious animosity. 

National animosity, due to previous quarrels, and 
perhaps increased by racial dislike. 

Sympathy (usually grounded on religious or racial 
affinities) with a section of the subjects of another state 
who are believed to be oppressed by it. 

National pride or vanity. 

Fear of an attack by another state. This includes 
what are called Preventive Wars, where a Power which 
thinks (or professes to think) itself endangered by the 
designs of another Power seeks to anticipate those de- 
signs by striking first. 

Few wars can be referred entirely to one cause, and 
the presence of any one ground for collision naturally 
tends to intensify the influence of such other grounds 
as may exist. 

Of these causes there is only one which has been 
almost eliminated. This is religious (or ecclesiastical) 
hatred. The desire to propagate a faith by the sword 
is no longer strong even in Islam, though attempts have 
been recently made by the German Government as the 
ally of the Young Turks to utilize the preaching of a 
Jihad against the infidel. Among the so-called Chris- 
tian States, religious antagonism survives only as a sec- 
ondary source of enmity, disposing to civil strife or in- 
ternational hostility communities which have been per- 
meated by the traditions of ancient persecution. The 
sentiment of ecclesiastical unity has, moreover, some- 
times contributed to strengthen the sense of a national 
unity, leading a people to believe in what it calls its mis- 
sion, and to seek to accomplish that mission by forcible 
means. 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 127 

The old desire for territory or booty has now passed 
from cattle-lifting on land and Vikingry at sea into the 
form of a desire for more and better colonies, and for a 
fuller control of the means of production and of the 
industrial high roads of commerce. The tribal chief- 
tain's thirst for fame appears in the desire to maintain 
the grandeur of a dynasty. But the ancient motives — 
selfishness, rapacity, and vanity — are as strong as ever. 
In one sense they are even more formidable, because 
they are often shared by the masses of a nation, and 
inflamed by an agency more pervasive than any that 
existed before the telegraph had been added to the 
printing-press. 

Is there any one of these causes the disappearance 
whereof can be expected? 

Religious passion has cooled, and ecclesiastical an- 
tagonisms may vanish, for the hold of dogmas and 
church organizations on men's minds has grown weaker. 
Yet the sort of fervour which expressed itself through 
those antagonisms, the desire in bodies of men to make 
other men think as they do, and so to resort to persecu- 
tion if persuasion fails, may pass into new forms, and 
in them be again terrible. Of the other causes there is 
none which we have not seen active in our own time, 
some perhaps more active than ever before. Nearly 
all have, as affecting one or other of the now belligerent 
Powers, borne a part in bringing about the present con- 
flict. It is the gloomiest feature in the situation that 
to-day the interests and passions of peoples, and not 
merely those of monarchs or oligarchies, are engaged, 
for the enmities thus created are more lasting and per- 
nicious. In the old days when philosophers used to 
ridicule the whims of a king who went to war to revenge 
a sneer or to provide an appanage for a younger son, 
the king might be appeased, and the war was sometimes 



128 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

closed by a royal wedding, but now the bitterness which 
conflict engenders remains to keep jealousy and sus- 
picion alive for many a year. As Mephistopheles says 
in Goethe's Faust, '' the little god of the world bears 
always the same stamp." Other things change. 
Knowledge increases and wealth increases, but human 
nature has remained, in essentials, much what it was 
thirty centuries ago, and is never free from the risk of 
a relapse into the primal passions which Vanity and 
Ambition may so possess a whole people as to suspend 
the control of reason. 

It may be argued that we must not lay too much 
stress on the circumstances attending the outbreak of 
the present war, for the position was unprecedented, 
and the conduct of some at least of the belligerents is 
not to be construed as indicating a bellicose spirit. 
This argument has force, for it is not merely the action 
of each nation that has to be regarded, but also the 
temper and motives which determined that action. 
But after making all allowances, the conclusion must 
be that the forces whence conflicts spring have never 
shown themselves stronger than in our own time. 
There is no sign of a diminution either in the spirit of 
rapacity or in the spirit of arrogance which moves 
those in whose hands lie the issues of war and peace, 
be they sovereigns or subjects. The sentiment of na- 
tionality, which in the days of Mazzini was deemed an 
almost unmixed good, has shown (and notably in 
South-Eastern Europe) that it can be darkened by na- 
tional selfishness, jealousy, and pride. 

So far, then, this brief review of the causes of war 
in the past gives little ground for hope. 

We may now pass to the second question. Assum- 
ing, as the facts seem to indicate, that the causes which 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 129 

have induced war through the whole of history are still 
present and potent, can we discover any forces already 
counterworking them, and likely to strengthen in the 
future the motives that make for peace? 

Four such forces have at various times inspired hope. 

One is Religion. Of the three great World Re- 
ligions, one, Islam, is essentially warlike, for it is the 
duty of every Musulman ruler to propagate the Faith 
by the sword. The other two are nominally pacific. 
Into the history of Buddhism I will not enter, except to 
remark that its practice has in all matters of State 
fallen so far short of its theory that theory has virtually 
counted for nothing. As to Christianity, it is enough 
to look back over the centuries since the Emperor Con- 
stantine. Res ipsa loquitur. What would be the 
thoughts of one of the Apostles, or of a martyr saint 
of the second century, who, revisiting this planet to- 
day, should be told that the gospel he preached had 
overspread the world, and was taken as their rule of 
life by nearly all of the nations on whose strife he 
looked down? 

Are Christian principles more likely to influence the 
conduct of nations in the future than they have influ- 
enced it in the past? That question is as dark to-day 
as ever it was before. The lesson of ecclesiastical 
even more than of secular history is that the movements 
of thought and emotion and the changes they undergo 
are altogether unpredictable. Where there is an un- 
limited field of possibilities there is of course room for 
hope. Christianity is no doubt, at least in some coun- 
tries, far more of an influence making for peace than 
it was four centuries ago. How little it was doing for 
peace even before the great religious schism of the six- 
teenth century had supplied a new cause for war may 



1 3 o ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

be seen by referring to the book (the Complaint of 
Peace) in which Erasmus comments on the unchristian 
spirit of his own time. 

Another such force is democratic government. We 
are often told that so soon as the masses of the peo- 
ple — that is, the numerical majority of the voters — 
obtain in each nation the full control of its policy to- 
wards other nations, the old dynastic traditions that 
have so often prompted aggression will be eliminated, 
and the power of the military castes be destroyed. It 
is a gain for peace that those traditions and those 
castes should disappear, and no doubt that the working 
people have heretofore, though not indeed in this war, 
had more to lose by war than any other class, for they 
were the first to suffer in loss of employment as well as 
by slaughter in battle. That sense of class solidarity 
which has gone further among the wage-earners than 
in any other section of a nation — even if not nearly so 
far as had been expected — may dispose them to re- 
frain from indulging in permanent hatred towards an- 
other people. Against this view it is urged — apart 
from the difficulty which no democracy has overcome, 
of finding a method by which the control of foreign re- 
lations may be exercised by the masses — that the mul- 
titude is just as liable to be swept away by passion, just 
as liable to be puffed up by national or racial pride, just 
as likely to covet the land or the commerce of other 
nations, as is any other class in the community. These 
things were seen in the popular governments of an- 
tiquity, and seen also in the (far less popular) repub- 
lics of mediaeval Italy. The experience of modern 
democracy has been too short to warrant positive con- 
clusions. The two countries most pacific in spirit are 
free democratic republics, but Switzerland has geo- 
graphical as well as moral or philosophical reasons for 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 131 

keeping out of war, and the United States were, be- 
tween 1783 and 19 14, engaged in three wars, none of 
which can be called necessary, and one of which (that 
with Mexico in 1845) 1S now admitted, by Americans 
themselves, to have been scarcely justifiable. The 
sources of war are to be found not in constitutional 
arrangements but in human nature. They are ethical 
rather than political. 

A third line of argument has been used to show that 
the extension of commerce, unfettered by any tariffs 
giving an advantage to the domestic producer, must 
give each country a larger interest in keeping the peace, 
because trade is profitable both to the seller and to the 
purchaser. The more trade the more profit, and 
therefore the stronger is the motive for continuing the 
exchange, and the wider are the opportunities for 
friendly intercourse and reciprocal knowledge. 

This theory also has much to recommend it. Those 
who realize that they will lose by war ought to desire 
peace. But the doctrine which favours a free inter- 
change of products has not in fact spread or thriven of 
late years. It appears to be less popular now, even in 
its ancient British home, than it was fifty years ago, 
which may indeed be said of the theory of laissez-faire 
generally. Most peoples, even the formerly self-help- 
ful peoples, seem disposed to look more and more to 
governments to take charge of their affairs and to 
make the prosperity of individuals. 

Fourthly, those who see that in some countries the 
increase in the functions of government and the tend- 
ency to sacrifice the individual to the State have been 
accompanied by the development of a martial and ag- 
gressive spirit, conceive that the two things are natu- 
rally connected. When the State labours to increase 
the wealth of individual producers by the imposition of 



i 3 2 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

tariffs, and by helping its financiers to lay their grasp 
upon foreign countries, it is expected to go further and 
acquire new territories, especially if they be rich in 
minerals, and to open up or even create new markets 
outside Europe. It is only by military strength that 
such plans can be carried out. Hence — so the argu- 
ment runs — militarism becomes popular with the great 
employers of labour, perhaps even with the employees. 
Military glory and the prosperity of the State are iden- 
tified. Huge armaments are advocated for business 
reasons; and a people proud of its military resources 
is naturally tempted to use them. If, therefore, this 
doctrine of State omnipotence could be discredited, if 
the masses of a nation could be induced to revolt against 
the dominance of State officials and the extension of 
State activity, the antagonism of nations would be soft- 
ened and a fertile cause of war be reduced. 

This reasoning finds support in recent experience, 
but there are at present few signs of any general revolt 
against the doctrines which the argument seeks to dis- 
credit. On the contrary, the range of State action 
tends, in almost every country, to be increased, various 
classes desiring it for their own special reasons, and a 
well-marked current of thought running in that direc- 
tion. This fact is far from proving that mankind will 
ultimately be the gainer. There are flood-tides of 
error as well as of truth, history furnishes many an 
instance in which such currents, strong for a while, and 
sweeping everything before them, have in the long run 
men who brought more evil than good. 

Lastly, there are those who believe that we may look 
for the growth over the civilized world of a sentiment 
of friendliness and goodwill for men as men, irrespec- 
tive of national distinctions, and that this sentiment will 
ultimately draw the peoples of the earth together and 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 133 

make them realize the conception of a great Common- 
wealth embracing all mankind, to which all will owe an 
allegiance higher than that which they bear to their 
own State and country. To create such a sentiment 
was of course part of the message of Christianity: and 
the sentiment has always found its chief support in re- 
ligious belief. But as it may exist, and has in some 
minds existed, apart from Christianity, it deserves to 
be separately mentioned. Is the sentiment likely to 
grow till it becomes strong enough to influence national 
policy? Has it, in fact, been growing? 

To those of us who can look back for sixty years, it 
seems to be weaker now in most, perhaps in all, coun- 
tries than it was then, as it was stronger then than it 
had been in the days when the horrible African Slave 
Trade was deemed an asset in commercial prosperity. 
But a lifetime is far too short a period from which to 
draw conclusions on such a matter. Within our own 
time we have seen among ourselves a great advance in 
the sense of responsibility felt by those to whom For- 
tune has been kind for those whom she has neglected. 
We note a more active sympathy and, despite class an- 
tagonisms, a stronger sense of brotherhood between the 
members of the same people. May not such a feeling 
spread into the wider field of international relations? 
We perceive that in the English-speaking countries, of 
which alone we can judge, there exists already a warmer 
and more general pity than was ever seen before for 
suffering of every kind in every country; and wherever 
over the world a cry is raised for help to the victims 
of some disaster by earthquake, flood, or storm, the 
response is prompt and generous. That the hatreds 
and horrors conspicuous to-day grieve us all the more 
because they seem to be a reversion to a dark and cruel 
past, is of itself a testimony to the progress which man- 



I34 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

kind had made, and raises in some minds the hope that 
the horrors we have been witnessing may be transient 
and the next change be for the better. 

After thus enumerating these natural causes, if one 
may so call them, which have made or are making for 
war or for peace, it remains only to ask what prospect 
there is that the nations may by a conscious and united 
effort succeed in establishing some machinery whereby 
the likelihood of future wars may be at least dimin- 
ished. No one can examine the wars that have sprung 
from the causes I have enumerated without perceiving 
that in the great majority of instances peace might have 
been kept, without dishonour to either party, and with 
material advantage to both, had there been more fore- 
sight of the consequences of war, and a real desire to 
avoid it. Many wars have been unjust, most have 
been unnecessary. Can any means be devised whereby 
the action of nations other than those two (or more) 
between whom the quarrel arises can be invoked to pre- 
vent the disputants from settling it by arms? 

This is a very old problem. It was debated in the 
fourteenth century, when two great Italians, Dante 
Alighieri and his younger contemporary Marsilius of 
Padua, both saw in the authority of the Roman Em- 
peror the guarantee, and indeed the only guarantee, 
for the peace of a distracted world, as others had be- 
fore their time found it in the spiritual jurisdiction of 
the Roman Bishop. Five centuries later the problem 
was again discussed by Immanuel Kant, and, a gener- 
ation later, a feeble attempt at a solution was made 
by the Holy Alliance, on principles which would have 
foredoomed it to failure, even had the three despotic 
governments of Austria, Russia, and Prussia been more 
altruistically minded than they were. 

Both here and in the United States sanguine minds 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 135 

are now busy with plans which propose some kind of 
federation or league or alliance of nations charged with 
the duty of compelling disputant Powers to refer their 
disputes to arbitration or conciliation, and to abstain 
from violent measures, at least until these peaceful 
methods have had their chance. Such ideas cannot be 
dismissed as visionary, since they have been blessed 
both in this country and in the United States by the 
highest authorities in public life. I do not propose 
here to discuss them, but may properly supplement 
what has been said regarding the causes of war by in- 
dicating what are the difficulties which all such schemes 
for the prevention of war have to surmount. 1 

I will mention a few of these. 

That statesmen of the old school will dislike new 
methods which may withdraw from them some of the 
control they have hitherto enjoyed must be expected. 
But far more serious is the deep-rooted unwillingness 
of every nation, and especially of a strong and proud 
nation, to submit any part of what it calls its rights to 
the decision of an external tribunal. This has been 
happily overcome in some recent instances, but in none 
of those instances were the interests involved of great 
moment: and even in the countries where arbitration 
has won most favour there is a feeling, hard to over- 
come, that the cession of territory is a question on which 
the country itself must always have the last word. In 
every nation the fact that statesmen and journalists seek 
to please their public by constantly asserting the right- 
eousness of its own cause makes it hard to arrange rea- 
sonable compromises. An American statesman, than 
whom there is none wiser anywhere, recently observed 
that one of the greatest difficulties the negotiator of a 

1 Some aspects of this topic are treated more fully in Chapter VIII., " On a 
League of Nations." 



136 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

treaty has to encounter is the displeasure of his fellow- 
countrymen at any concession, even when he feels his 
own cause to be none too strong, and believes his coun- 
try would gain by the removal of friction. Nations 
seem to be as sensitive on what is called the " point of 
honour " as were members of the noblesse in France 
and England three centuries ago. They hold out 
against arrangements which individual men would ac- 
cept. He who suggests the dropping of a doubtful 
claim is accused of timidity or want of patriotism. 

When a nation is invited to reduce its defensive arma- 
ments in the faith that the other states which are uniting 
themselves in a Peace League will join their forces 
with its own to repel any aggression, doubts will arise 
whether the parties to any alliance for the preservation 
of peace can be trusted to fulfil their respective obliga- 
tions except when it is their obvious interest to do so. 
Where several allied states are alike threatened by a 
powerful enemy, a regard for their safety will doubt- 
less require them to hold together. But cases may 
easily be imagined in which some members of the 
League, having at a given moment nothing direct to 
gain by supporting a threatened ally, may, either 
through unwillingness to fight or through the offer of 
some advantage for themselves, be induced to find a 
pretext for standing aside. As soon as one member 
thus falters, some other member is likely to follow the 
example, alleging that if one or more fail to stand by 
the obligation, the rest cannot be expected to fulfil it. 
The ultimate benefit to all of mutual protection and of 
the repression of any disturbance of the general peace 
may be admitted. But in politics the avoidance of a 
near evil is usually preferred to the attainment of a 
more remote good, for all can recognize the former and 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 137 

only those of large minds and long views can appre- 
ciate the latter. 

Another difficulty has received little notice, because 
those who start these schemes, rejoicing in the excellence 
of their aim, sometimes forget to examine the means. 
It is the difficulty of securing persons competent to dis- 
charge the functions of Arbitration and Conciliation. 
Jurists versed in international law can be found fit to 
determine questions of a purely legal nature, such, for 
instance, as the interpretation of a treaty. Though 
there are not many such men in Europe, there may be 
enough for present needs. But the causes which most 
frequently lead to hostilities are not of a legal charac- 
ter. In comparatively few cases out of all those in 
which disputes have led to war in Europe since 18 15 
could the judicial methods of an arbitral court have 
been profitably used. 1 War usually springs from ques- 
tions of wider range, questions to which no precedents 
are precisely applicable, questions which involve the 
passions of rulers or of peoples. To these questions it 
is Conciliation, not Arbitration, that must be applied; 
and the conciliators who are to deal with them must be 
men possessing an intimate knowledge of European 
politics and a long experience in international statesman- 
ship. They must enjoy a reputation extending beyond 
their own country, and such as will add weight to their 
opinions. They must, moreover, possess sufficient in- 
dependence and courage to follow their own views of 
what is right and wise at the risk of displeasing their 
countrymen. Few are the persons in whom these quali- 
fications will be likely to meet. 

It is better to state and face these obstacles than to 
ignore them with the complacent optimism which mis- 

1 The controversy as to the succession to the duchies of Schleswig and Hol- 
stein which arose on the death of Frederick VII. of Denmain. is such an in- 
stance. In that case the parties did not wish to arbitrate. 



138 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

takes its own wishes for facts, or assumes that ethical 
precepts will prevail against the bad habits of many 
generations. But the obstacles are not insuperable. 
If the free peoples of the world really desire permanent 
peace, desire it earnestly enough to make it a primary 
object and to forgo some of their own independence 
of action to attain it, the thing may be tried with a fair 
prospect of success. What is needed is the creation, 
not only of a feeling of allegiance to humanity and of 
an interest in the welfare of other nations as well as 
one's own — what in fact may be called an Interna- 
tional or Supra-national Mind — but also of an Inter- 
national Public Opinion, a common opinion of many 
peoples which shall apply moral standards to the con- 
duct of other nations with a judgment biased less than 
now by the consideration of the particular national in- 
terests which each nation conceives itself to have. 

Could such a moral iudicium orbis terrarum be estab- 
lished, it might do more than any arbitral tribunal, or 
Council of Conciliation, or combination of Powers to 
raise the level of conduct in international relations and 
restrain the selfish passions even of monarchs or dema- 
gogues. Though the nations are still some consider- 
able way from the general diffusion of such a feeling 
and opinion, we need not assume that the waves of pas- 
sion will continue to run so high as they do now, and 
we may even venture to hope that the sentiment of a 
common devotion to the common welfare of all man- 
kind will, within the next few generations, gradually 
assert its strength. 

This leads me to one more topic proper to be here 
referred to. 

In comparison with all the other sadnesses of this 
time, with the sorrow and mourning that have entered 
every home, with the loss of those bright young spirits 



vi PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 139 

who would have been the leaders of the next generation, 
some among them minds that would have rendered in- 
comparable services to learning and science and art — 
in comparison with these things the evil I am about to 
mention may seem small. Yet it is one that must be 
mentioned, for it directly affects the objects for which 
this Academy exists, and we, together wich our friends 
and colleagues of the Royal Society, are those who best 
know how grave it is. I speak of the severance of 
friendly relations between the great peoples of Europe, 
the interruption of all personal intercourse, and of that 
co-operation in the extension of knowledge and the dis- 
covery of new truth from which every people has gained 
so much. The study of philosophy and history has 
done little for those of us who pursue it if it has not 
extended their vision beyond their own country and 
their own time, pointing out to them that human prog- 
ress has been achieved by the united efforts of many 
races and many types of intellect and character, each 
profiting by the efforts of the others, and also remind- 
ing them that for further advance this co-operation is 
essential. To restore it is at this moment impossible. 
But let us at least do nothing to retard its return in 
happier days. Those days some of us cannot hope ever 
to see. For the elder men among us there has come a 
perpetual end of that delightful and mutually helpful 
companionship which united us with the learned men 
of two other great nations, a sense of partnership be- 
tween those who pursued truth which overrode all na- 
tional jealousies, and was fruitful for the progress of 
letters and science. This partnership is gone, and the 
world will for years to come suffer from its departure. 
Yet the severance cannot last for ever. When a storm 
has levelled the forest or a waterspout has scarred the 
slopes of a valley, the eternal forces of Nature, slow 



i 4 o ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap.vi 

and often imperceptible in their working, but restlessly 
active, begin to repair the ruin the storm has wrought. 
Young trees spring up to renew the forest, and verdure 
clothes once more the devastated hillsides. 

Two years ago the Spirit of Sin and Strife was let 
loose upon the earth like a destroying whirlwind. That 
spirit is personified in the Iliad as Ate, the Spirit of Evil 
that takes possession of the soul. She is the power that 
strides swiftly over the earth, kindling hatred and 
prompting men to wrong. But the poet tells us that 
after Ate came the Litae, gentle daughters of the Al- 
mighty, who, by their entreaties, soften men's hearts to 
pity. Halting are their steps and their visage wrinkled, 
and their look askance, but they bring repentance and 
they assuage the passions which the Spirit of Wrong 
has kindled. Ate has been afoot in the world, and we 
see everywhere her deathful work. But after a time 
the Litae, following slowly in her track, will begin to 
heal the wounds she has cut deep into men's souls. 
Nations cannot be enemies for ever. The time must 
come when a knowledge of the true sources of these 
calamities will, even there where hatred is now strong- 
est, enlighten men's minds and touch their hearts. 
May that time come soon ! 

AiAivov alkwov enre, to 8' tv viKarco. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY AND ITS 
APPLICATIONS 

Seventy years ago many an active and sanguine mind 
in Europe and America was aflame with what then 
began to be called the Principle of Nationality. Those 
were the days when Despotism seemed the great enemy 
to human progress and human happiness; and despot- 
ism was worst where the despot ruled over an alien 
people. So the sympathy, both of America and of 
Britain, or at least of British Liberals (among whom 
was then to be found a great majority of the men of 
light and leading), went out when, in 1848, the crash 
of the Orleans Monarchy in France had shaken most 
European thrones, to the Italian revolutionaries, to the 
Polish revolutionaries, to the Czechs in Bohemia, to 
the Magyars in Hungary, who, under the illustrious 
Kossuth, were fighting in 1 849 for their national rights 
against Hapsburg tyranny, to the German patriots who 
were trying to liberalize Prussia and the smaller king- 
doms, and bring all Germans under one free constitu- 
tional Government. Men hoped that so soon as each 
people, delivered from a foreign yoke, became master 
of its own destinies, all would go well for the world. 
The two sacred principles of Liberty and Nationality 
would, like twin guardian-angels, lead it into the paths 
of tranquil happiness, a Mazzinian paradise of moral 
dignity, a Cobdenian paradise of commercial prosperity 

and international peace. 

141 



142 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

These bright prospects were soon overclouded. A 
dreary reaction followed the revolutions that ran over 
Europe in 1848-49. After a while the passion for lib- 
erty regained its power. Italy was set free; Louis 
Napoleon's bastard imperialism disappeared in 1870. 
In 1867 Hungary regained her constitutional rights 
under the leadership of Francis Deak. But the prin- 
ciple of Nationality has not only proved far more diffi- 
cult to apply than its apostles of those days expected, 
but has developed dangerous tendencies then unfore- 
seen. In not a few countries it has led to constant dis- 
quiet and frequent strife. As the wars of the later six- 
teenth and earlier seventeenth century were in the main 
wars of religion, as the wars of the eighteenth century 
were in the main wars of dynastic interest, so the wars 
of the nineteenth century mostly arose from, or were 
entangled with, questions of nationality. And now, in 
the twentieth century, we have seen the overweening 
nationalism of Germany become the chief source of the 
present war, as it was the desire of Austria to crush 
the nationality of Serbia that furnished the immediate 
cause of its outbreak. The problems which await solu- 
tion when the war ends are nearly all problems that 
involve the claims of peoples dissatisfied with their pres- 
ent rulers and seeking either independence or union 
with some kindred race. It is therefore of the utmost 
importance to have clear ideas as to what Nationality 
means, what part it is playing in this world-conflict, 
whether it has contributed to a perversion of the moral 
sense of Germany, and, finally, in what ways and to 
what extent the i\llied Powers can, when victorious, 
apply the principle it embodies. What can be done in 
the coming treaty of peace to satisfy the national aspi- 
rations of the peoples and bring about a more stable 
international situation than Europe has yet seen? 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 143 

What constitutes a Nationality? and what is the differ- 
ence between a Nationality and a Nation? 

The popular use of the terms is vague, and any defi- 
nition that can be given is likely to be either too wide 
or too narrow to suit the facts. How various the facts 
are can be shown from a few examples. A Nationality 
may or may not be also a Nation. The peoples of 
France, of Norway, of Italy are both Nations and Na- 
tionalities. The people of Great Britain are a Nation, 
including three Nationalities — English, Scotch and 
Welsh being parts of a larger British Nationality. 
The races and peoples of Austria-Hungary, such as 
Germans, Czechs, Poles, Magyars, Slovenes, are each 
of them either a Nationality or a part of one, but they 
do not form a Nation, though they are gathered into 
one State. The German Empire would be nearly con- 
terminous with a German Nationality, if we were to 
omit from it the Slavs of Posen and West Prussia, as 
well as the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine and those of 
North Slesvig, both of whom disclaim the name of Ger- 
mans. The Spaniards are a Nation, and though we 
can speak of Catalans and Basques as elements in that 
nation, neither Catalans nor Basques constitute a Na- 
tionality in the same sense as do the Czechs within the 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The former are at any 
rate content to remain Spaniards, while the latter desire 
to lead an independent political life as a Nation. 

What, then, makes Nationality? Not Race alone. 
There may be a Nationality composed of two or more 
races. The Swiss people is composed of three : Franco- 
Burgundian, Allemano-Teutonic, and Italian. Yet the 
Swiss Nationality is one of the strongest and most co- 
hesive in the world. Scottish Nationality has grown up 
out of four kingdoms, and it was not completed till the 
old hostility of Highlanders and Lowlanders ended in 



i 4 4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

the eighteenth century. So the Belgians are partly 
Flemings, partly French-speaking Walloons, but the 
two elements have joined to form that genuine Belgian 
nationality which the Germans nave been trying to 
break in two and destroy. 

Neither does a common language make, or the want 
of it efface, Nationality. The Alsatians before 1870 
had become virtually French by nationality, though 
most of them spoke German. Switzerland is all one, 
though three languages are spoken in it. In South 
America the Uruguayans are of the same stock as the 
Argentines, and speak the same Spanish, but they are 
now a distinct Nationality and proud of being a distinct 
Nation. It is only a series of historical accidents that 
have made them such. 

The Albanians have never had one government of 
their own. They are divided into tribes, often at feud 
with one another. Some are Muslims, some Orthodox 
Greek Christians, some Roman Catholics. But they 
are a Nationality, and are most unwilling to be merged 
either in a Serb or in a Greek kingdom. So just as we 
cannot define the term Nationality, so neither can we 
lay down a general rule as to what makes the thing in 
the concrete. But we can recognize it when we see it, 
and can in each case explain by the light of history how 
it comes to be what it is, the product of various concur- 
rent forces, which have given to a section or group of 
men a sense of their unity, as the conscious possessors 
of common qualities and tendencies which are in some 
way distinctive, marking off the group from others and 
creating in it the feeling of a corporate life. Race is 
one of these forces, language is another, religion is a 
third, often of the greatest importance. A common 
literature — perhaps in the rude form of traditions 
and ballads in which those traditions are preserved, as 



vh PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 145 

in the songs of the Serbian people — all these things 
count. The memories of the heroes who helped to 
achieve liberty for Switzerland, of the perils they faced 
and the victories they won, have been to its people 
a constant stimulus to national sentiment. Even 
stronger, in some countries, than recollections of glory 
have been the recollections of suffering, of sorrows 
endured, and of sacrifices nobly but vainly made. 
Through generations cheered by few hopes, such recol- 
lections have been nourishing that sentiment among the 
Irish, and the Czechs, and the Serbs, and the Arme- 
nians, and the far-scattered fragments of Israel. 
These are cultivated races, each with a long history 
and a copious literature, so the sense of Nationality 
has been able, through the ampler expression it found 
therein, to become more fully developed among them 
than in a comparatively backward race, such as is the 
Albanian or the Lithuanian. And of course where that 
which we call the Fibre of a race is tough, the sentiment 
has more tenacity and more elasticity. It is a power to 
be reckoned with in the modern world, far stronger now 
than it was a century ago. 

Why has it thus been gaining strength, and that at 
the very time when every part of the world is being 
drawn into closer connection with every other part, so 
that each is less isolated, more dependent upon others? 
The passion of a nation for its independence is of course 
old enough. Among the Scots, for instance, it was 
powerful from the days of the War of Independence, 
when the attempts of the English King Edward the 
First to dominate Scotland as he had conquered Wales 
forced the people into a union of resistance. In Portu- 
gal it brought about the revolt which severed the coun- 
try from the Spanish monarchy, of which it had formed 
a part for sixty years. Among the Magyars it sup- 



146 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

ported Francis Rakoczy in vindicating their ancient 
rights against the Hapsburg sovereigns. Nearly all 
the European nations had a national pride which ex- 
pressed itself conspicuously in times of war. In most 
of them, however, this pride did not, in times of peace, 
go deep down among the middle and lower classes. 
They had little more than an attachment to their own 
ways of life and their own religion, with a correspond- 
ing distrust of foreigners and of " heretics " or " Pa- 
pists," as the case might be. The two things which 
distinguish Nationality, as we know it, from these old 
familiar feelings, are comparatively recent. One is 
the desire of the politically divided parts of a race (or 
racial group united by language and traditions) to be 
gathered together into a single State. The Poles, who 
in the successive partitions of Poland had found them- 
selves allotted partly to Russia, partly to Austria, partly 
to Prussia, sought to be reunited in a Polish kingdom. 
Italy, still more divided and parcelled out into many 
principalities, longed to be delivered from their mis- 
rule, as well as from Austrian tyranny, and to become 
a single free State. Similarly, among the South and 
Middle Germans, who were ruled by a far greater 
number of petty potentates, there arose after the War 
of Liberation (18 13-14) a movement for bringing to- 
gether all Germans, Prussians included, under one gov- 
ernment, which should make a German nation conter- 
minous with German nationality, restoring the unity of 
the old Empire as it stood in the days of the Hohen- 
staufen Emperors. With this movement, as well as 
with the aspirations of the Poles and those of the Ital- 
ians, British and American Liberals were in hearty sym- 
pathy. Italy made the strongest appeal, because the 
Italian Risorgimento was led by a group of men eminent 
by elevation of character and aims, no less than by their 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 147 

brilliant gifts. Among them Cavour, Mazzini, and 
Garibaldi are the best remembered, but there were 
many other noble figures whose names are still cher- 
ished in Italy. To-day the same desire of a nationality 
divided between several governments to coalesce in one 
State shows itself among both the Northern and the 
Southern Slavs, among the Italians who dwell in the 
Trentino under Austrian rule, among the Rumans who 
inhabit parts of Transylvania and Bukovina (to the 
north and west of the kingdom of Rumania). 

The other recent phenomenon is the intensification 
of nationalistic pride and national vanity within many 
nationalities which are already independent nations, 
and especially among the greatest of these. In the 
seventeenth century men's minds were occupied with re- 
ligious controversies, so they knew little, thought little, 
and cared comparatively little about racial distinctions. 
In the eighteenth century it was the sovereigns or the 
" classes " that made wars with dynastic or commercial 
ends in view. But after the revolutionary convulsions 
that began in 1789 the mass of the people, as in each 
country it began to gain power, began also to realize 
itself as a Nation. The strength of the State, the size 
and the wealth of the State, became sources of pride for 
it. The philanthropic quality which had marked the 
apostles of freedom in the later eighteenth century, the 
respect professed at least, however neglected in prac- 
tice, for the Rights of Man, the desire to promote the 
progress of mankind as a whole which animated the 
Utilitarian school, the tenderness for backward races 
which appeared in the British and American Abolition- 
ists — these and similar phases of opinion fell into the 
background. With a more active and pervasive na- 
tional self-consciousness there came a spirit of rivalry, 
a desire to compete with other States for all that was 



148 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

worth having, — foreign trade, territories in parts of 
the world occupied by uncivilized races. With this 
came a passion for powerful fleets and armies. The 
aggressive tendencies which had belonged to monarcns 
passed into the blood of the peoples. A sort of 
" struggle for life " set in. Theories of race were 
promulgated which played up to national vanity. His- 
tory was invoked to prove to each people its own supe- 
riority to its rivals. Public writers and speakers sought 
popularity by disparaging other nations and flattering 
their own. The spirit of Nationality was no longer a 
mere assertion, wholesome and legitimate, of the right 
of those who felt themselves united in language and 
literature, in ideas and traditions, to be also united 
politically. That spirit, the satisfaction of whose 
claims had from 1840 to 1870 been expected to pro- 
duce brotherhood and peace as well as freedom, now 
revealed itself as a source of strife and danger. It 
showed a capacity for fanaticism which almost repro- 
duced the phenomena of religious animosity in the six- 
teenth century. It had passed into an aggressive self- 
assertiveness which strove for pre-eminence and recked 
little of justice. 

This spirit was more or less visible in all the greater 
nations, and in all of them politicians tried to turn it to 
their purposes. But it reached its climax in Germany, 
which came latest into the rank of the nationalities that 
had consolidated themselves into States. United Ger- 
many had become the strongest of European military 
powers, for Russia, vast as were her territory and 
population, stood far behind in intelligence and civiliza- 
tion. Few things in modern history are better worth 
studying than the causes which have transformed the 
Germany of 1864 into the Germany of 19 14. 

The spirit of German Nationality which had begun 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 149 

to show itself about 1770, had been immensely stimu- 
lated by the War of Liberation against Napoleon, and 
had blazed out again in 1848, found one of its chief 
supports in the memories enshrined in poetry and 
legend of the mediaeval Romano-Germanic Empire. 
These memories gave a colour of sentiment and ro- 
mance to the longing for national unity. They helped 
to form the view which other nations, and especially 
Englishmen, were in those days apt to take of the Ger- 
mans, that they were an idealistic, unpractical, almost 
dreamy people, who found their chief joy in music, art, 
and metaphysics. 

This, however, was anything but the spirit of Prus- 
sia, or at least of the class that ruled Prussia. No 
romance or sentiment there. All was hard, stern, prac- 
tical. The traditions typical of Prussia were traditions 
of war and territorial aggrandizement, which dated 
from the victories of the Great Elector (of Branden- 
burg) in the beginning of the seventeenth century and 
gained further strength from the career of Frederick 
II. (the Great). He was, and remains, the most per- 
fect expression of the Prussian spirit. He it was who 
gave to Prussia's aims their definite direction and 
stamped upon her methods the character they have 
never lost. Frederick was not only a successful com- 
mander, but a diligent and capable organizer. From 
him date the association in the Prussian mind of civil 
discipline and economic progress with war and conquest, 
the identification of the controlling power of the State 
with the prosperity of the submissive subject. 

Prussia's leadership in the War of Liberation gave 
her an ascendancy over the German peoples which was 
able to endure, despite the jealousies of the govern- 
ments of the second-class States, such as Bavaria and 
Saxony, and despite also the disappointment caused to 



150 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

the German Liberals by the repressive policy which 
Prussian monarchs followed in domestic affairs. In 
1848 Frederick William IV. refused the invitation of 
the Frankfort Parliament to become German Emperor, 
and William I. his successor allowed Bismarck to defy 
the Prussian Chamber. But whatever complaints Ger- 
man Liberals everywhere had against Prussia, they 
were compelled to look to her for leadership as against 
the despotic and clerically obscurantist Hapsburgs. 
On her they still placed their hopes for turning German 
nationality into a unified German State. Bismarck sat- 
isfied these hopes by his three wars, against Denmark 
in 1864, against Austria in 1866, against France in 
1870. But the price paid for the victories which cre- 
ated a united Germanic Empire was the extinction of 
the old German Liberalism. Of the children of the 
Liberals of 1 848-1 849, some passed over into the ranks 
of the Conservative parties, some into those of the 
Social Democrats. The ideals and aims of the nation 
were undergoing a change. 

The three wars wrought this change by reviving in 
greater strength than ever the traditions of Frederick 
II. The principle of nationality had triumphed, for 
unity was won, but it had been won by " blood and 
iron." The military spirit and traditions of the Prus- 
sian monarchy were blent with those traditions of the 
mediaeval Empire which the rest of Germany had cher- 
ished. Frederick's conception of a military State, rest- 
ing on Power, aiming at further power, imposing strict 
discipline and exacting unquestioning obedience in civil 
as well as military affairs, began to pervade the na- 
tional mind, and was accepted because the State under- 
took to do so much for its subjects. It gave an efficient 
administration by which all classes profited, and it pro- 
moted foreign trade and every kind of material devel- 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 151 

opment by every possible means. The rapidly growing 
industrial and commercial prosperity obtained by this 
policy, and by the energy of the people, intensified the 
sense of national pride and self-confidence. 

The transports of joy which accompanied the vic- 
tories of 1870-71 and the attainment of full national 
unity in an Empire which seemed to re-embody the me- 
ridian glory of the Middle Ages, stimulated — one 
might almost say deified — the sentiment of Nation- 
ality, spurring the new realm to achieve fresh conquests 
beyond the seas. In the competition for unoccupied 
tropical territories which began not long afterwards, 
large claims were made for Germany. The " Colonial 
policy " became popular, and with it presently came the 
desire for a great navy. Bismarck, who had been con- 
tent to make Germany One State, and the strongest in 
Europe, was swept along by the current, and almost 
compelled to acquire colonies which he did not care for. 
He cared even less to turn eastward, and emphatically 
disclaimed any interest in Constantinople. But when 
he was gone the young Emperor William II., profess- 
ing himself the friend of Islam and of Abdul Hamid, 
formed plans for dominating the Near East, and ob- 
tained first commercial and railway concessions, and 
ultimately a practically controlling influence over the 
rulers of Turkey. A powerful navy was created. The 
scope of ambition enlarged itself, in many German 
minds, to the domination of the world. 

Nationalism, as it affected the educated class gener- 
ally, made the greatness of the country seem the su- 
preme aim for State and individual, justifying not only 
aggression, but even breaches of faith, such as was the 
invasion of Belgium in 1914. Salus Germaniae su- 
prema lex. As the Nation had become an Army rather 
than a People, Nationalism gave to the military caste a 



152 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

prestige and authority never seen in Europe before. 
The Caste dominated politics. Bismarck had resisted 
it and disapproved its methods. Unscrupulous as he 
could be, he recognized the power of world opinion, 
and showed a certain respect for it by his efforts to put 
his antagonists, technically at least, in the wrong. 1 But 
he had no civilian successors of equal strength. The 
military and naval chiefs to whom his controlling influ- 
ence passed, thinking and dreaming incessantly of war, 
and making Power and Victory their only aim, became 
so obsessed with the ideas of successful war, that moral- 
ity ceased for them to exist. All methods became law- 
ful. It was to them a duty — as it had been to the 
Spanish Inquisitors — to be cruel and faithless if cruelty 
and faithlessness promised success in their aims. 

Nowhere else in the modern world have national 
pride and self-confidence risen to so high a pitch. Not 
even the Romans in the days of Augustus surveyed the 
world, of which they were masters, from such a pin- 
nacle of conscious superiority, for the Romans did at 
least acknowledge the Greeks as their teachers, and 
recognized the greater brilliance of Hellenic science and 
literature and art. 2 But in the case of Germany sev- 
eral streams of feeling combined to swell the flood of 
pride. There was the marvellous growth of industry 
and commerce. There was the progress of chemistry 
and physics, assiduously pursued in many Universities, 
turned to practical ends in technical institutions, and so 
made to yield an ample harvest of profits to the com- 
mercial class. There was a literature not indeed equal 
in richness and variety to that of Britain or that of 

i Thus in 1864 he did not act till Denmark had broken the treaty of 1852; in 
1866 he contrived that the breach of the treaty of 1865 should come from 
Austria. See Professor Munroe Smith's interesting book. Militarism and State- 
craft, for an instructive comparison between Bismarck's diplomacy and that of 
his latest successors. 

2 Cf. Aeneid, bk. vi; Horace, Epp. " vos exemplaria Graeca." 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 153 

France, but illustrated by many great names, especially 
in the domains of abstract thought. And, above all, 
there were the triumphs of the Prussian rifle and can- 
non. Much has been attributed to the histories, like 
those of Giesebrecht and von Raumer, which celebrated 
the achievements and virtues of mediaeval heroes, much 
to the philosophical theories which have claimed omnip- 
otence for the State and placed it above all moral obli- 
gations. But it is Facts that have remoulded the Ger- 
man mind during the last fifty years. Hegel and 
Treitschke would have counted for little without the 
three successful wars which have Prussianized Germany 
and made War seem to so many to be the foundation 
of her greatness. 

While the spirit of Nationalism was running to this 
excess in Germany, the small nationalities of South- 
Eastern Europe and Western Asia r/ere awakening to a 
more active life. The war of 1877-78 had delivered 
Bulgaria from the Turk, the rising of the Eastern 
Rumelians in 1885 enlarged its territory, and led Serbia 
to attack it. Greece and Montenegro gained exten- 
sions in 1880 by the help of England. Each of the 
four Balkan nationalities 1 had its traditions and its 
aspirations, and as the latter were incompatible with 
those of its neighbours, a bitter rivalry followed where 
there ought to have been a mutual good-will, and where 
there was really a common interest, which might have 
taken useful shape in a federal union against the hos- 
tility of Turkey and the dangerous patronage of Russia 
and Austria. Meanwhile, in Asia the rulers of Tur- 
key were seeking to preserve their own national and 
religious predominance by exterminating their Chris- 
tian subjects. It was the Armenians, as lying most out 

1 Greece, Serbia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. Montenegro, though an inde- 
pendent State, belongs to the " Jugo-Slav " Nationality. 



154 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

of the sight and knowledge of Europe, and because 
most feared in respect of their industry and intelligence, 
who were the chief victims of massacre, but Greeks 
and Syrians too have had to suffer. Turkish misgov- 
ernment went so far as to awaken in Syria also the 
long-dormant sense of Arab nationality. 

As the present war has sprung from the strife of 
races and religions in the Balkan countries and from 
that violence done to the sentiment of nationality in 
Alsace-Lorraine which made France the ally of Russia, 
so also has it raised a multitude of other questions of 
nationality in various parts of Europe and Western 
Asia which call for settlement at the end of the war. 
Settled they must be, if the desired peace is to endure 
and if the proposed League of Free Nations to Enforce 
Peace is to have a fair chance of success. These ques- 
tions fall into five groups : 

I. Those of Western Europe. 
II. Those of East Central Europe (Bohemia, Po- 
land, and the western parts of Russia). 

III. Those of South-Eastern Europe (the so-called 

"Balkan Countries"). 

IV. Those of Western Asia (Syria, Armenia, the 

Caucasus, and the Twelve Islands of the 
Aegean Sea). 
V. Those of West Central Asia (Persia with, 
possibly, Turkestan and Siberia). 

Of these Groups, Nos. III. and IV. are really one, 
for both involve the fate of the Turkish Empire. The 
step preliminary to their settlement is to abolish for 
ever the rule over subjects of a different faith of the 
unspeakable, irreclaimable, intolerant Turk, 1 who has 

1 By " the Turk " I mean the Osmanli as a ruler, not the Turkish peasant, 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 155 

been a curse to Asia, as well as to Europe, for six cen- 
turies. But it is convenient to take the Balkan coun- 
tries separately, because their fate is inwoven with that 
of another Empire, whose dynastic interests have 
caused infinite mischief since the days of the Emperor 
Ferdinand the Second. 1 

I. Western Europe 

The West European issues of Nationality are those 
of Alsace-Lorraine and of the Danish-speaking popu- 
lation of North Slesvig, who have been kept under 
German rule ever since the wars of 1864-66, though 
it had been stipulated that they were to be restored to 
Denmark. These cases are too familiar to need de- 
scription. The German Government has tried to cre- 
ate another racial question by its attempt to make the 
Flemings of Belgium into a Germanic nationality as 
opposed to the Walloon or French-speaking part of 
the population. But this ingenious plan, interesting 
as proceeding from those who have laboured to extin- 
guish Polish nationality in Posen, did not suggest it- 
self till after an unfortunate beginning had been made 
by shooting in cold blood, during the invasion of Bel- 
gium, batch after batch of innocent non-combatant 
Flemish burghers at Louvain, Aerschot, and other Bel- 
gian towns. Nor has it been promoted by the more 
recent carrying off into virtual slavery of crowds of 
Flemish workmen and peasants to toil in German fac- 
tories or help to construct German entrenchments on 
the Western front. 

who is usually an honest and kindly being, though capable of ferocity on oc- 
casions. 

1 In briefly describing these questions I shall seldom express my own opin- 
ions, for though whoever has travelled through the countries concerned (as I 
have through many of them) cannot but have his opinions, views are little 
worth without arguments to support them, and for arguments there is no room 
in such a sketch as this. 



156 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

II. Central Europe 

The break-up of the Russian Empire which followed 
the revolution of March 19 17 has created some very 
intricate new problems in the regions which lie between 
the Baltic and the Euxine, in addition to the old prob- 
lems of Bohemia and Poland. Bohemia was an inde- 
pendent Slavonic kingdom ten centuries ago, and is a 
separate kingdom now, though since 1526 its crown 
has been worn by the Hapsburg archdukes of Austria, 
who have (since 1805) called themselves Emperors 
of Austria. Its original Slavonic quality has been af- 
fected by the influx of Germans from the North and 
West. These now form about one-third of the popu- 
lation, but the spirit of Czech nationality, which had 
never died out, has been powerfully reinvigorated since 
1848, and most markedly so in recent years. This 
spirit has spread not only among the Czechs of Mo- 
ravia, but also among the Slovaks of Northern Hun- 
gary, whose language is almost the same as Czech, 
though they have been for many centuries subjects of 
the Hungarian Crown. Far behind the Czechs as 
these Slovaks are in intellectual culture, their sense of 
their kinship with that race and their resentment at the 
attitude towards them of the Hungarian Government 
have produced among them a sympathy with the Czech 
movement, which now seeks to create a Czecho-Slovak 
State covering the regions aforesaid. Both Czechs 
and Slovaks have during this war given proof of cour- 
age and of devotion to their nationalist aims by going 
over in large numbers from the Austrian armies to the 
Russian, and by the valour with which they have fought 
along the Volga and in Siberia on behalf of the Entente 
Allies. They constitute a population which may be 
roughly estimated at 12 millions, and their aspirations 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 157 

are likely to receive general sympathy in Britain, 
France, and Italy, probably in the United States also. 

Polish politics are too intricate and their aspects too 
changeful to be described here. It must suffice to say 
that the bulk of the Polish nation, including nearly all 
of those who are subjects of Prussia in Posen and 
West Prussia, and a large (though probably smaller) 
proportion of those who are subjects of Austria in 
Galicia and Austrian Silesia, desire to see Poland be- 
come once more an independent kingdom, if possible 
with the limits which it had before the lamentable par- 
tition of 1776, and at any rate with some guaranteed 
access to the Baltic. Whether the Ruthenian popula- 
tion of Eastern Galicia and parts of Russian Poland 
should be included in this kingdom or be assigned to 
the Ukraine is a moot question. The population of 
this reconstituted Poland would be large, perhaps from 
twenty-two to twenty-eight millions, that of the pro- 
posed Czecho-SIovak State something over eight mil- 
lions. 

When we pass from these two ancient kingdoms to 
the races which have been gathered into an independ- 
ent State, and most of which cannot even be called 
Nations, Lithuanians and Letts in East Prussia and 
the north-western parts of Russia, Slavonic Ruthenians 
or Little Russians in the Ukraine, Finns in Esthonia 
and Finland, the difficulties to be settled at the conclu- 
sion of a General Peace become even greater. Here 
there are no natural boundaries either of mountains 
(for these regions are parts of the great East Euro- 
pean Plain) or of rivers. Neither are there potent 
historic traditions moulding the wishes of the peoples. 
Language and religion are practically our only guides 
to the discovery of any nationalistic distinctions on 
which the building of political fabrics can be based. 



158 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

The Finns, a vigorous race, have a language entirely 
different from that of their Slavonic neighbours, and 
they are Protestants. The Lithuanians have their 
own very ancient tongue, and they are mostly Roman 
Catholics. The Letts, also with a language closely 
resembling Lithuanian, are mostly Protestants. A 
few belong to the Orthodox Church. Neither of these 
are Slavs. The Ruthenians or Little Russians, like 
the less well-marked groups — hardly to be styled na- 
tionalities — called Red Russians and White Russians, 
speak Slavonic dialects differing but slightly from the 
much larger mass of the Great Russians, and they, as 
well as the latter, belong to the Orthodox Eastern 
Church. If the German Government were left to deal 
with the problem which this part of Europe presents, 
it would doubtless set up a number of small principali- 
ties, which it would control partly through rulers of its 
own choice, partly by military menace, partly by the 
use of money. The weakness of such rulers, and their 
mutual jealousies, would make them helpless vassals 
of the German Empire. The Western Allies, whose 
aim must be not only to create a stable order, but also 
to foster liberty and to respect the spirit of nationality, 
promoting in an unselfish spirit the welfare of popula- 
tions hitherto neglected by their despotic sovereigns, 
will have a harder task, for most of these populations 
can hardly be deemed fit to work democratic institu- 
tions. Politically, the Finns are most advanced, for 
they have had in the Grand-duchy of Finland an au- 
tonomous government under the Czars. In some cases, 
as, for instance, that of the Ukraine (Ruthenes or 
" Little Russians ") , we do not yet know how far what 
can be called a true Nationality, i.e. a sense of consti- 
tuting a distinct intellectual and moral entity, so far 
pervades the bulk of the people as to make them desire 



vn PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 159 

a distinct governmental organization. Such a sense 
seems to exist in a part at least of the educated class, 
and the Austrian and German Governments have tried 
to develop it in order to sever the Ukrainians from 
the other Russians. But is it general? The Finns of 
Finland, an educated and highly intelligent race, are of 
course in a different position. They might well be 
left, when the German intruder has been expelled, to 
form an independent Government, probably republi- 
can, perhaps a member of a Federation, which should 
include Esthonians, Letts, and Lithuanians. A recon- 
stituted Poland might also be a member, but the smaller 
peoples may, it is believed, prefer to be left to them- 
selves. 

III. South-Eastern Europe 

Here we find five distinct Nationalities — Ruman, 
Bulgarian, Serb, Greek, and (if the Turks can be called 
a Nationality) Turkish, or at any rate Muslim. Mon- 
tenegro, though an independent State, is hardly a na- 
tionality, for its people are racially identical with those 
of Serbia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. Each of these na- 
tionalities has claims beyond its present political bound- 
aries. 

The Rumans seek to acquire a large part of Bess- 
arabia (included in Russia till 19 17), which is inhab- 
ited by Rumans, and also most of Transylvania, with a 
slice of Eastern Hungary and a little bit of Bukovina. 
In Transylvania, however, there is a certain popula- 
tion of German-speaking Saxons, chiefly in a few towns 
such as Hermanstadt and Kronstadt, and a greater 
population of Magyars, the largest part of which con- 
sists of a remarkable mountain people called Szeklers, 
slightly differing in aspect and dialect from the Mag- 
yars of the plain, but equally unwilling to be merged 



160 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

in the Rumans. How are the respective rights of these 
elements to be adjusted? The Rumans also dispute 
with Bulgaria the possession of the territory called the 
Dobrudja, which lies along the Black Sea south of the 
lowest part of the Danube's course, and which they 
forced it to cede in 19 13, though the bulk of its popu- 
lation speaks Bulgarian. Some politicians would like 
to go farther south and get hold of Varna, but there 
is no Ruman population there to justify such a demand. 

The Bulgarians, besides contesting Rumanian claims 
to the Dobrudja, seek to recover Adrianople and the 
country to the south of it as far as Constantinople, 
much of which is certainly Bulgar-speaking and was 
yielded to them by the treaty of 19 12, though the Turks 
took it back from them during the calamitous war of 
1913. Moreover, — and this is one of the most 
troublesome of all the Balkan questions, — Bulgaria 
disputes with Serbia the possession of Southern Mace- 
donia, i.e. the country west of the river Struma as far 
west as Monastir and Ochrida, and also disputes with 
Greece a strip of territory along the north coast of 
the Aegean. Both of these were assigned to Bulgaria 
by the treaty of 19 12 but lost in the war of 19 13, and 
then ceded, the former to Serbia, the latter to Greece. 
Both have been reoccupied by the troops of Bulgaria 
in the present war, and are claimed by her on the ground 
that their inhabitants are predominantly of Bulgarian 
stock. It was the popular desire to recover these dis- 
tricts which enabled King Ferdinand to lure or cajole 
his subjects into the war. 

Not less perplexing than this set of questions are 
those which relate to Albania, a country which has 
never formed an independent State, and was till re- 
cently part of the Turkish Empire, nominally at least, 
for the Turks had so little effective control that I 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 161 

found, when travelling there in 1885, tnat a Turkish 
general, desiring to send troops across the country, 
found it prudent to take off the soldiers' uniforms, that 
they might pass through in small bodies, and so escape 
the unfriendly attentions of the warlike tribes. Some 
of these tribes indeed have maintained their practical 
independence ever since Illyricum was lost to the Ro- 
man Empire in the sixth and seventh centuries. The 
boundaries of the country which they occupy are un- 
determined. On the south in particular the Skipetar 
(as the Albanians call themselves) are mingled with 
a Greek-speaking population, so that it is hard to say 
where Greece begins and Albania ends. On the north 
and east there is a similar contact, though rather less 
intermixture, with the Serbs. Thus both Serbia and 
Greece advance to certain districts claims which the 
Skipetar would not admit. So does Montenegro also. 
Italy, too, has now stepped in, and is understood to 
desire a protectorate over parts at least of Southern 
Albania. An unprejudiced observer is disposed to 
think that the best way out of this imbroglio would be 
to leave the mountain tribes severely alone. They are 
a bold and spirited race, and would fight fiercely for the 
independence which they love. To subdue such a 
people who, like the Afghans, love fighting for its own 
sake and are defended by rocky fastnesses, would give 
far more trouble than any results to be expected could 
justify. There has never been among them any ef- 
fective government, that is, any regular civil adminis- 
tration, and they get on without it. All that seems 
needed is to fix their boundaries — no easy task — give 
them access to the Adriatic, and prevent them, by a 
sort of police cordon, from raiding their neighbours. 
Next we come to the largest problem of all, that 
of the Slavonic population which occupies the south- 



1 62 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

western parts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, viz. 
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Istria, Croatia- 
Slavonia (the district south of the middle and lower 
course of the Drave) , Carniola, Eastern Carinthia, and 
a district of Southern Styria. The inhabitants of the 
westerly parts of these regions are called Slovenes, and 
speak a language cognate to, but slightly different from, 
that of the Dalmatians and Croatians, who are all Serbs, 
practically identical in race with the Serbians, though 
differing in religion, for the latter are " Orthodox " 
Greek, the former, as also the Slovenes, Roman Catho- 
lics. It would appear, though no trustworthy statistics 
exist, that in Croatia-Slavonia the proportions of the 
races are: Croats, 62 (Catholics using the Latin al- 
phabet) ; Serbs, 26; Germans, 5; and Magyars 4 per 
cent respectively. [There are said to be 40,000 
Slovenes in the Italian district of Friuli.] The Bos- 
nians are also Serbs, mostly Orthodox, though there 
are some Catholics, and a few Muslims remain. 
Taken altogether, these populations are now described 
as Jugo-Slavs (i.e. South Slavs) to distinguish them 
from the Northern Slavs ( Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and 
Ruthenes, and Russians generally) . 

The ambition of Serbia is to be the nucleus of a great 
Jugo-Slav State, embracing all these branches of the 
South Slavonic stock, which count some eight millions 
of souls, and delivering them all out of the hand of the 
Hapsburgs. Assuming that the power of Austria can 
be so completely broken as to make this aim attain- 
able, we have to ask whether all the above-named sec- 
tions of her present subjects desire their deliverance. 
They have had no opportunity during the war of ex- 
pressing their wishes, by political methods, and they 
have not in war broken away from the Austrian armies 
as the Czechs have done. The only means hitherto 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 163 

suggested for enabling them to exercise the right of 
self-determination after the war is by some sort of 
popular vote or so-called " plebiscite." Will their 
assent be forthcoming? It used to be thought that the 
ecclesiastical differences between the Roman Catholic 
and the Orthodox Slavs would prevent union, but those 
have come to seem smaller as the sentiment of racial 
unity has grown. Though that sentiment is less de- 
veloped among the Slovenes than it is in Bosnia or 
Dalmatia, or perhaps in Croatia, the Jugo-Slav leaders 
seem confident that it will overcome any lingering loy- 
alty to the Hapsburgs. It must, however, be remem- 
bered that leaders, especially when they are also exiles, 
naturally tend to attribute their own ardent convictions 
to their fellow-countrymen at home, many of whom 
may be but faintly interested in nationalistic aspira- 
tions. More cannot be said at present. If the dynasty 
of Rudolf comes to a perpetual end, it may well die 
unwept, for no long-descended line has, with the ex- 
ception of Maria Theresa, ever shown less nobility 
of soul or pursued its own interests in a more selfish 
spirit than this House has done since the well-inten- 
tioned Maximilian II. passed away in 1576. 

An Austrian monarchy need not, however, cease to 
exist when the South Slav regions have broken away 
from her, and when Italy has received the Trentino 
and any other districts to which she may show herself 
entitled. The Hapsburgs may still keep what they 
had, and rather more than what they had, in the fif- 
teenth century, that is to say, their purely German ter- 
ritories, the archduchies of Upper and Lower Austria, 
most of Tirol, Vorarlberg, Salzkammergut, most of 
Styria, and Western Carinthia. Whether these terri- 
tories will be attracted to Germany may depend on 
what befalls that country after the war. Whether the 



1 64 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

Magyars, now that they have no longer to fear that 
Russian autocracy whose invading hosts cut short their 
struggle for liberty in 1849, wl11 care to P rolon g tne | r 
political connection with the Hapsburgs and Germanic 
Austria will be their own affair. They are a high- 
spirited and forceful race, who could stand alone. 

IV. Western Asia 

Passing from Europe to Asia, we find ourselves 
among the Twelve Islands in the eastern part of the 
Aegean Sea (the so-called Dodekanese) , most of which 
belong rather to the latter than to the former con- 
tinent. They were taken from the Turks by the Italian 
fleet in 19 12, and Italy still continues to hold them, 
though they were not ceded to her by the treaty of 
19 13. Their population is, with the exception of a 
few Muslims, wholly Hellenic. One of them, Astypa- 
laea, is specially valuable in respect of its excellent 
harbour. What is to be done with Constantinople, 
unique in its position as it is in its history? There is 
a general feeling that a position of such incomparable 
military and commercial importance, guarding the 
passage from one continent to another, commanding 
the gateway to a great inland sea, ought not to be left 
in the hands of any Great Power. Is it then to be 
assigned to a weak Power, and if so, to which? Or 
is an attempt to be made to place it under the joint 
control of some combination of Powers, a hazardous 
experiment, which may, however, have to be tried, 
faute de mieuxf 

The questions that arise in connection with these 
two groups of nationalities (II. and III.) are so in- 
tricate that it may be well to state concisely the schemes 
for settling them which have, so far, received the most 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 165 

general support from the European Allies and from 
America. 

As respects Central Europe, the claims of the Czechs 
are felt to be strong. Their fervid national sentiment, 
their literature and traditions, their ancient historic 
rights entitle Bohemia to disvalue her connection with 
the Hapsburgs and live once more as a separate and 
independent State. Difficulties will, however, arise in 
dealing with the German minority and in the delimita- 
tion of those districts in North-West Hungary which 
are purely Slovak. Not less warm is the sympathy 
which the free peoples of Europe and America have 
given to the Poles in their long struggle to recover 
national independence. We all desire a reconstituted 
Poland, strong enough to hold its own. But here, 
too, there are obstacles to be overcome. Where are 
the frontiers to be drawn on the north and east? How 
is access to the sea to be secured? Are the Ruthenians 
of Eastern Galicia to be a part of Poland, or united 
with their brethren in the Ukraine? Can Prussia be 
forced to let go Posen which she has laboured for two 
generations to Germanize? 

The problem of European Russia is one on which 
few people in Western Europe or America are qualified 
to speak confidently, but the balance of opinion inclines 
to leave the Ruthenians (or Little Russians) to settle 
for themselves whether they wish to go with the Great 
Russians or to stand alone. It is clear that the Finns 
in Esthonia and Finland wish to be quit of Russia al- 
together, and this is probably the desire of the Letts 
and Lithuanians also. The question for these four 
small peoples therefore comes to be, Shall they form a 
group of petty unconnected States or shall they be 
united in a Baltic Federation? 

When we turn to South-Eastern Europe the ques- 



1 66 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

tions in debate are so many and opinion is so divided 
upon them that it is impossible here to do more than 
summarize the main points in controversy. Briefly 
stated, they are these: 

i. Shall a Jugo-Slav State be created embracing 
Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs, who are now subjects of 
Austria, and also the Serbs of Serbia and Montenegro? 

2. What possessions shall Italy have on the Adri- 
atic coast, and 

3. Shall the Albanians be independent? What ports 
on the Adriatic shall they receive? 

4. Where shall the boundaries be drawn? 

(a) Between Greece and Albania? 

(b) Between Greece and Bulgaria? 

(c) Between Serbia and Bulgaria? 

(d) Between Serbia and Albania? 

(e) Between Bulgaria and Rumania? 

5. How much of Transylvania, of Bukovina, and of 
Bessarabia shall be allotted to Rumania? 

6. What shall become of Constantinople and the 
bit of territory behind it still left to the Turks in 
Europe? 

Those who know even a little of these countries 
know that the races live so intermixed that it is im- 
possible to draw any lines without placing many villages 
or even large districts of one nationality within the 
territory of a State of a different nationality. There 
must be a certain amount of give and take, but unfor- 
tunately the temper which arranges a give and take is 
wanting to the Balkan peoples. 

In Asia Minor we find a Greek-speaking population 
along the west coast, mixed with Muslims in the coun- 
try districts and with Armenians in the cities. On the 
north coast, and in the great inland plateau, the in- 
habitants are nearly all Muslims, calling themselves 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 167 

Osmanlis, besides some Circassians and Muslim sects 
like the Kizil Bashes, with Greek and Armenian Chris- 
tians scattered here and there, the latter chiefly in the 
cities and in the Cilician mountains. The principle 
of nationality would allot the western seaboard, with 
its adjacent islands, to Greece, and leave the plateau 
to the Muslims. If it is desired to maintain an Otto- 
man Sultanate, these inland and northern regions might 
be assigned to it. Bad as Turkish rule is everywhere, 
such a Sultanate would be too weak to venture to op- 
press or massacre the Christian inhabitants of the few 
cities in the regions aforesaid. For a capital it might 
have Afium Kara Hissar, or Konia, which was the 
seat of the Seljukian Sultans in the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries. It need hardly be said that the Western 
Allies will feel bound to exclude from German influ- 
ence both the Caucasian countries and Mesopotamia, 
since the Germans have not concealed their wish to use 
these regions as a stepping-stone to the domination of 
Central Asia and the creation of a menace to the po- 
sition of Britain in India. 

No one will now venture to propose that the Turk 
should be allowed to retain any power in the countries 
east and south of the Taurus range, in which he has 
committed such unheard-of cruelties as those which 
Armenians and Syrians have had to suffer in 19 15 and 
19 1 6. His work of massacre was unfortunately so 
thoroughly done in these two years that the larger part 
of those elements of the population on which its pros- 
perity depended, and to which some kind of self-gov- 
ernment might have been given, has been destroyed in 
Armenia and greatly reduced in Syria. The Armenian 
race is, however, singularly industrious and singularly 
tenacious of life. It quickly repairs its losses. Its 
sense of nationality is so strong that many who emi- 



1 68 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

grated to escape the miseries from which they were 
suffering may return, even from the United States, 
where they are counted by hundreds of thousands. 
But these native races, progressive as they are by their 
intelligence and their industry, will for some time to 
come need a guiding and protecting hand. They live 
intermingled with so-called " Turkish " Muslims and 
with Kurds. The latter have been wont to rob and 
murder and carry off the women of their Christian 
neighbours, whom the Turkish Government tried to 
keep unarmed. But the Kurds were constantly stirred 
up and hounded on by the Government. Left to them- 
selves, they might be kept in order by a comparatively 
small police force. There is little racial and no great 
religious hatred between them and the Armenian or 
Nestorian Christians. Much the same may be said of 
northern Syria, mainly Arabic-speaking and Christian, 
except in and about Aleppo and in Damascus. Ar- 
menia and Syria have great natural resources, and want 
nothing but a Government which will secure public 
order and improve communications to recover the pros- 
perity of which a blighting rule has deprived them. 
The question is : What Power or Powers will under- 
take, in an unselfish and benevolent spirit, the task of 
securing order? A small gendarmerie, organized and 
officered by a civilized Power, would suffice, and the 
expenditure on roads and railways might before long 
prove remunerative. 

What has been said of Syria applies to that region 
lying farther south which arouses our keenest interest. 
In Palestine the Muslims, speaking Arabic, have long 
disliked the Turks, and would welcome a European 
Protectorate. So, of course, would the small Christian 
element. The Jews, who have already established 
flourishing agricultural colonies, are prepared to return 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 169 

in numbers so large that there may be a difficulty in 
finding land for all who wish to come. Irrigation 
works would, however, vastly increase the productive 
areas. In the Jordan valley alone hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres could be reclaimed from aridity at no 
great cost, and along the coast between Carmel and 
Gaza large tracts could be made productive by the con- 
struction of reservoirs in the valleys which descend 
westward from the Judaean highlands. 

Mesopotamia, which thirty centuries ago was one of 
the richest and most populous parts of the world, is 
now mostly a wilderness, over which nomad Arabs and 
Kurds wander at their will across broken canals and 
among the huge mounds which mark the sites of fa- 
mous cities ruined long ago. It might again become 
one of the chief corn-supplying countries, not to speak 
of cotton and other staples. Labour is of course 
wanted, but under some sort of civilized Protectorate 
labour might soon flow in. There is here no question 
of nationality to deal with, the country being almost 
empty. Titular sovereignty might be given to the 
King of the Hedjaz or some other Musulman potentate. 
But in whom are the duties of a Protecting Power to 
be vested? 

Turning to the north, we come again in contact with 
old nationalities. The middle and western parts of 
Transcaucasia are inhabited by the Georgian race (the 
ancient Iberians), to which the Mingrelians, Imere- 
tians, and Lazes belong, the former Christian, the 
mountain Laz tribes (dwelling south of Batum), who 
are much less advanced, Mohammedan. Out of them 
a new State, renewing the traditions of the old Georgian 
monarchy, which did not finally disappear till 1800, 
might be created. Eastern Transcaucasia (the lower 
valley of the Kura River and the coasts of the Cas- 



1 7 o ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

pian) is chiefly occupied by Mohammedan Tartars, 
who had no sense of nationality, and indeed had not 
heard of the thing, till the recent Pan-Turanian propa- 
ganda of the German Government began to be applied 
to them. Can any State be built up out of what is 
not even a nation? Southern Transcaucasia, round 
Erivan, Kars, and Ani (the ancient capital), is part 
of the Armenian lands, and would naturally come 
within any governmental organization that may be 
given to them. 



Easternmost of all among the countries which the 
war has shaken are Persia and its northern neighbour 
Turkestan, the Iran and Turan of the ancient Oriental 
world. It is so hard to know what to do with them 
that the Congress which will have to settle Europe and 
the fragments of Asiatic Turkey on solid foundations 
may well seek to avoid the task. The Khanates of 
Khiva and Bokhara, where Russian Bolsheviks have 
been fighting fiercely with Muslim Turkmans, might 
perhaps be left alone, though one would be sorry to see 
them relapse into the barbarism of ninety years ago. 
With Persia it is otherwise. Europeans have acquired 
large interests there and enterprises set on foot whose 
continuance would have benefited the country. It is 
now threatened with anarchy. The monarchy has 
broken down; the attempts to set up a Constitution 
and a Parliament seem to have failed, though the 
Persian people has retained its high intelligence and 
still from time to time produces remarkable men. Can 
any plan be devised by which the Allied nations could 
give the country a prospect of order and peace ? Here, 
however, the questions involved are not primarily those 
of Nationality — and the same may be said of Siberia 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 171 

— so here our survey of that particular aspect of the 
Resettlement of the Near Eastern World may close. 

This list of questions that await decision is a long 
one, yet it gives no sufficient impression of their com- 
plexity and of the multitude of details a knowledge of 
which will be needed by those who will represent the 
belligerent Powers at a Peace Congress. Many points 
are highly controversial, and few are the well-informed 
persons to be consulted who add impartiality to their 
knowledge. The members of the Congress will need 
to be on their guard against journals, magazines, 
pamphlets, and books written to advocate the claims 
of particular nationalities, cr particular factions within 
nationalities. Some of these nationalities have secured 
what is called " a good press." Their particular case 
is constantly and forcibly pushed, while the case on the 
other side is misrepresented or ignored, and may find 
hardly any organ to defend it. Thus opinion is manu- 
factured for a public which is never given the chance 
of hearing all the facts fully and fairly set forth. 

Another danger of which a Peace Congress will, we 
may hope, beware, is that of assuming responsibility 
for framing constitutions and erecting governments in 
States which the treaty of peace will call into existence. 
Should an Ukrainian republic, for instance, be set up or 
a new Jugo-Slav State be formed by the union of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, perhaps of Croatian and Dalmatian 
districts also, with Serbia or Montenegro, it would be 
better to let the peoples of these regions settle for 
themselves their relations with one another and their 
form of government rather than for the treaty-making 
Powers to undertake the task. If the latter were to 
attempt it, they could hardly escape liability for main- 
taining and guiding the course of whatever government 
they had set up, a thing always full of risks for all 



i 7 2 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

parties concerned, and specially difficult when under- 
taken by a Concert of Powers. Remember the failures 
of the European Concert after the Treaty of Berlin 
in 1878. The new States so constituted or enlarged 
will doubtless have plenty of troubles to face, but each 
had better face those troubles for itself and learn by its 
own experience. 

Many cases will arise where no arrangements can 
be made satisfactory to all the nationalities concerned. 
In Bohemia, for instance, how are the wishes of the 
Czech majority to be reconciled with the rights of the 
considerable German-speaking minority who live in- 
termingled with the Czechs, and form in some few 
districts the larger part of the inhabitants? How is it 
to be determined whether a territory which is by race 
and language half Greek and half Albanian shall be 
dealt with? We remember the case of Ulster, in which 
it was found impossible to induce the contending parties 
to agree as to whether the counties of Tyrone and 
Fermanagh were or were not to be included in the area 
for which special treatment was proposed. Compro- 
mises are apt to be resisted on both sides. The diffi- 
culty may in some countries be lessened by the creation 
of local self-government for small areas. Villages 
belonging to the race and language which is in a mi- 
nority in the country as a whole might be permitted to 
administer their local affairs, including churches and 
schools, a fertile source of quarrels. Such an expedient 
would reduce friction and provide some sort of safe- 
guard against oppression by the Central Government. 
In South-Eastern Europe much bitterness has arisen 
from the attempts of the majority in the country to 
enforce uniformity in the use of its own language in 
schools, as well as in official proceedings. 



vii PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 173 

Some may fear that the difficulties which the Peace 
Congress will find in the tremendous task of redrawing 
the map of Europe in accordance with the principles of 
Nationality and " self-determination of the peoples " 
will prove so great that the Congress will abandon it in 
despair, and cut short an interminable labour by rough- 
and-ready methods, leaving many aspirations unsatis- 
fied, many injustices unredressed. This is no idle fear. 
Yet every such injustice may be the parent of future 
unrest, perhaps of future war. Considering how 
strong the sentiment of nationality has grown to be, 
and how earnestly the Allied peoples desire that it 
should cease to be a source either of domestic troubles 
or of international strife which would blast the pros- 
pects of a Peace League, ought not the Congress to 
do all that it can to respect and give effect to that 
principle, even though many months be required for 
the task? Much, I venture to think, may be expected 
from the influence of the United States in the Congress, 
because the great republic of the West will stand im- 
partial between the jarring interests which have hitherto 
affected the Governments of the European Powers in 
their dealing with the Near East, and because she has 
no selfish interests of her own to serve. Poles, Czechs, 
Germans, Russians, Magyars, Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, 
Rumans, Albanians, Armenians, Arabs, and Syrians 
will recognize in her representatives arbiters more de- 
tached and unbiassed than those of any European nation 
would be assumed to be. This is an advantage which 
the Congress will possess over those that have preceded 
it, for in them, from the days of Osnabruck and 
Miinster in 1648 down to those of Berlin in 1878, the 
diplomatic envoys of the Powers were sent to press the 
interests each of his own country, and could not help 



174 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

regarding at every turn those interests, unchecked by 
the presence of any who came to speak only for justice 
and liberty. 

The respect to which the principle of Nationality 
is entitled ought to be extended to the German people 
also. For the German Government, indeed, no pun- 
ishment could be too severe. We cannot forget its 
shameless perfidy and the detestable cruelty with which 
it has carried on war, even against non-combatants, 
by land and sea. It must be disgraced and discredited, 
fatally discredited, in the eyes of its own people by 
the only things that will discredit it and deliver them 
— failure and defeat. The military caste which rules 
Germany, its pernicious theories and its inhuman 
methods, have been a menace to the rest of mankind. 
That menace must be removed. But to go beyond this 
and try to dismember Germany, or inflict upon her any 
wanton humiliation, would be a capital error. The 
insolent arrogance which Napoleon showed when 
Prussia lay prostrate before him after the battle of 
Jena provoked the harsh retaliations of the Prussian 
army when it entered France in 1814, creating for the 
first time a deep-rooted animosity between the two peo- 
ples. The Allies had better sow no dragon's teeth 
out of which armies shall hereafter spring up. They 
may content themselves with a victory which shall vin- 
dicate the principles of Right, and deliver the world 
from the dangers with which German ambition has 
threatened it. 

Nationalism, carried to an extravagant excess in Ger- 
many, became dangerous to the world when united to 
the doctrine of an omnipotent and non-moral State, just 
as two chemical substances which may be comparatively 
harmless apart make up a dangerous explosive when 
combined. But though exaggerated and perverted by 



viz PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY 175 

the Germans in a way which no one expected sixty- 
years ago, its spirit is innocent and useful in modera- 
tion. The same electricity which is a destroying force 
in the thunderbolt carries our messages and warms 
our houses when diverted to safe uses. National feel- 
ing has been running too high not only in Germany 
but to some extent in nearly every people. Its indul- 
gence has been almost as dangerous to peace as was 
its repression by the ignorant and short-sighted diplo- 
matists of former generations. Recent experience has 
taught us to understand the limitations as well as the 
value of the principle of Nationality. Better things 
may be hoped from it in the future as it becomes more 
and more restrained and purified by the higher senti- 
ment of an allegiance to mankind. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 

The idea that action should be taken after this war to 
secure an enduring peace in the future, an idea at first 
derided as Utopian and afterwards denounced as a form 
of " pacificism," has begun to find favour among the 
Allied nations in Europe, and now receives in Britain 
an assent almost as general and hearty as it had already 
won in America. Statesman after statesman has 
blessed it. Nearly all the organs of public opinion that 
are worth regarding commend it. Trade Unions and 
other organizations of workers have given it a specially 
warm welcome. Thus it is scarcely necessary to-day 
to submit arguments on its behalf. 1 It is enough to 
refer to the words spoken by the leading statesmen of 
Britain and France, to the powerful advocacy of Presi- 
dent Wilson, ex-President Taft, and Mr. Elihu Root 
in the United States, expressing, it cannot be doubted, 
the general sentiment of the American people, and 
especially to the despatch of January 8, 19 17, in which 
the Allied Powers gave it their collective sanction. 
Nevertheless, in Great Britain at least, the idea still 
remains (to all but a few students) a vague concep- 
tion, an aspiration that has taken no definite and tangi- 
ble form. It is easy to talk of a Peace League. But 

1 It is hardly necessary to say that the Peace League discussed in the fol- 
lowing pages is a totally different thing from the present Alliance of the 
" Entente Powers " formed to prosecute this war to a successful conclusion, and 
would be established after, and if possible immediately after, that con- 
clusion, in order to make secure and permanent the peace then attained. All 
that I have to say relates to what may be done after the war has ended, though 
it is important to begin at once to consider the proper steps to be then taken. 

176 



chap. viii CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 177 

in what definite way and for what specific purposes 
are nations to combine? Who are the combining 
nations to be? Will any combination stand firm and 
endure? in power, in wisdom, in a sense of responsi- 
bility and in honesty of purpose? What machinery 
can be created equal to a task so great as that of keep- 
ing the world's peace? The proposal is one of im- 
mense scope, and opens up all sorts of questions which 
it would take a large book to explore and discuss. Into 
the details of these questions I shall not venture. But 
it may be profitable to state exactly what the essence 
of the problem is, what sort of action it implies, what 
obstacles confront those who try to solve it. The evil 
to be dealt with is as old as mankind. Tribes were 
already fighting in the Stone Age, as the remains of 
their weapons show. The philosophers of the ancient 
world assumed war to be the natural relation between 
States. While the conditions of human society gen- 
erally have been improving in other directions, in this 
one direction they have grown worse. Man, as he 
developed skill, soon found means of defending himself 
against the wild beasts that used to terrify him. Still 
advancing, he studied and subjugated the forces of 
nature. He has learnt how to prolong his life and 
how to cure most of his diseases. But while other 
evils were being extinguished or mitigated, the evils 
of war have increased. The present world conflict 
is more terrible in the volume of slaughter and in the 
physical and moral suffering it has brought on com- 
batants and non-combatants than any which history 
records. 

Many remedies have been from time to time pro- 
pounded, but only once has a serious attempt been made 
to apply any. Christ taught that men should love one 



178 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

another, even their enemies, and when the rulers of the 
world embraced Christianity it was expected that peace 
would overspread the world. Athanasius, writing in 
the days of Constantine, declared that wars would end 
because Christians could not possibly fight one another. 
Centuries after his time sanguine spirits hoped that the 
Pope, as the spiritual, or the Emperor, as the temporal 
head of Christendom, 1 would bring the strife of Chris- 
tian States to an end. But Popes as well as Emperors 
were found who fomented war, or, like Julius II., them- 
selves engaged in it. 2 

Now, when at last many peoples are again addressing 
their thoughts to find means of securing an enduring 
peace, two methods are proposed. One, which is 
really the Christian method in a new dress, is to induce 
men to restrain their national patriotism, or national 
selfishness so far as to recognize, over and above their 
duty to their own State, an allegiance to Humanity at 
large. They are to respect the rights of others equally 
with their own, and to cultivate what has been called 
an International or a Suparnational Mind. This 
remedy, if it succeeded, would be a complete remedy. 
But the spirit it enjoins has made little, if any, progress 
in recent years, and the most ardent optimists admit 
that no one can, as yet, foresee a time when it will 
prevail over the world. 

Another method would be that of the Anarchists, 
who propose to destroy war by destroying the State as 
the power which makes war, or that which finds expres- 
sion in the doctrine of the Bolshevists that if those 
whom they call " Capitalists " and " bourgeois " were 
extinguished and all men became " proletarians," 

1 See in particular Dante's treatise De Monarchia. 

2 See the book of Erasmus, written two centuries after Dante, called The 
Complaint of Peace. He refers to the case of Pope Julius, his contemporary. 



vui CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 179 

national distinctions would be effaced and the causes 
of war be therewith removed. These fantastic visions 
need not delay us. 

The only method with a promise of practical utility 
that has been proposed for securing international peace 
is that suggested by a consideration of the steps whereby 
law and order have been established within every 
civilized community. In primitive societies, and down 
even to the Middle Ages, private wars were common. 
Whoever had the power did that which was right in 
his own eyes, making good his claims or redressing 
his injuries by the strong hand. After a time the evils 
of violence being felt, custom established rules for 
settling disputes. An authority which was, or pro- 
fessed to be, impartial grew up, which adjudicated 
according to these rules, and the collective power of 
the community was called in to enforce the decisions 
given by the judicial authority. By these means law 
and order were established within each State. No 
such means have been applied to the settlement of 
disputes between States, because rules recognized by 
States as binding them have not existed, because there 
has not been an impartial authority to determine dis- 
putes arising between them, because even in cases where 
nations have agreed to set up such an authority on 
a particular occasion there has been no power strong 
enough to enforce obedience to its decisions. If these 
three things could be created, viz.: (1) A body of 
rules constituting a law governing the relations of 
States, (2) impartial tribunals to decide controversies 
between States according to that law, and (3) a supra- 
national power to compel obedience to the judgments 
of those tribunals, there would be a security against 
violence done by one nation to another resembling 



180 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

that which now exists within each State against violence 
done by one citizen to another. 

How, then, can these three requisites for inter- 
national peace be created? 

The first requisite is a law which independent States 
will recognize as binding. The rules which now go by 
the name of international law are, as everybody knows, 
not really laws in the strict sense of the word. Many 
of them have the authority of justice and good sense 
behind them. Many have the authority of a custom 
long settled and observed. Others, again, though not 
rules of universal application, have been embodied in 
treaties between two or more States, and are therefore 
binding in honour on those States. But none of these 
principles or customs or obligations of honour created 
by contract can be relied on as certain to be obeyed. 
No principle of right is based on a more solid founda- 
tion of justice than that the territory of a peaceful 
neutral must not be violated by a belligerent power. 
But this did not prevent the German Government from 
invading and ruining Belgium. A solemn promise was 
made by the Great Powers to one another at the Hague 
in 1907 to abstain from the use of poisonous gases in 
war. This did not prevent the German Government 
from resorting to that cruel method. To the means 
of making so-called international law effective by pro- 
viding for its enforcement we must presently return. 
Meantime we have to ask who is to draft and enact 
the rules which are to bind States or nations in the 
future. Evidently this must be done by States them- 
selves. They must select competent men to prepare 
the rules, and must after discussion enact them, each 
State pledging itself to the others to a full and loyal 
obedience of what they have conjointly declared to 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 181 

be the law that shall thereafter govern their relations 
to one another. Any State that refuses to join will, 
of course, not be technically bound by the law enacted; 
but that law will, nevertheless, have a much higher 
authority than international rules have hitherto pos- 
sessed, for it will embody the mind and will of at least 
a considerable number of States who will be concerned 
to apply, extend and defend it. 1 

How is this body of international law, once created, 
to be applied to the controversies that may arise be- 
tween States? Disputes must, of course, be expected 
to arise between nations as they do between individuals 
within a State. Some way must be found of settling 
them by peaceful methods, since the nations have agreed 
to forgo war. 

This method will obviously be the establishment of 
a Tribunal, which can inspire respect by the learning 
and experience, the skill and the impartiality of the 
judges who compose it. Such an international tribunal 
will resemble the Courts of Arbitration set up in time 
past for a special purpose by two litigant States, such 
as that which, in 19 10, consisting of eminent jurists 
selected from the panel of the Hague Court, happily 
settled the question of 120 years' standing between 
Great Britain and the United States over the New- 
foundland fisheries. Treaties now exist between Great 
Britain and the United States, as also between France 
and other Powers and the United States, providing 
for arbitration by Courts so specially set up for such 
occasions. What is now proposed is a Permanent 
Tribunal which shall not need a special treaty made 
for each occasion, but one to which any State shall be 
entitled to appeal for justice against another, that other 

1 It has been suggested that every law enacted should require the consent of 
at least two-thirds of the members of the League. 



1 82 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

being bound to recognize the jurisdiction and put in an 
appearance. Arrangements would of course be made 
that those judges of the tribunal who were to hear 
the particular case should not be drawn from either 
of the contestant States. 

Controversies of a legal character easily admit the 
use of this judicial procedure. Where a dispute turns 
upon facts, or upon the interpretation of a contract 
(i.e. a treaty) between the litigant States, the issue 
is one which a Court of Arbitration can determine. 
But many of the differences or suspicions or grounds 
of ill-will that induce war between States have not this 
legal or justiciable character. 1 Whoever will examine 
the circumstances that brought about most of the dis- 
putes that ended in war during the last seventy years 
will find that very few are such as a judicial tribunal 
could have dealt with by legal methods. Where the 
question is one of what is called National Honour, 
and is perhaps mere national vanity, where the difficulty 
lies in sentiment or in views of material interests in- 
volved, where one nation does not trust the other, or 
nurses a sullen resentment for past injuries, these 
methods avail little. What is wanted is something 
less rigid and more elastic, not Adjudication but Con- 
ciliation. In some of the disputes just referred to as 
having caused recent wars, the mediation of even one 
impartial State might have had a fair chance of success, 
and that of a group of impartial States a better chance. 

l This is true of the wars of 1853 (Great Britain and France against Russia), 
of 1866 (Prussia and Austria), of 1870 (Germany and France), of 1877 (Russia 
and Turkey), of 1898 (U.S.A. and Spain), of 1899 (Great Britain and the 
Transvaal), of 1904 (Russia and Japan), of 1909 (Italy and Turkey), of 1912 
(Balkan States and Turkey), of 1913 (Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece). 

"Disputes are said to be " justiciable " when they relate to the interpretation 
of a treaty or turn on any question of international law, or on the existence 
of any fact which would, if established, constitute a breach of any interna- 
tional obligation, or as to the nature and extent of the reparation to be made 
for any such breach. When it is doubtful whether a question is or is not 
" justiciable," the point might be referred to the Tribunal for decision. 



viii CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 183 

In most of them, moreover, a careful investigation of 
the sources of friction and of the complaints which each 
disputant had against the other would have enlightened 
the world at large as to the merits of the controversy. 
And if during the period occupied by such an investi- 
gation — a period of, say, four or six months — each 
disputant had been required to refrain from military 
operations, the mere lapse of time would have allowed 
passions to cool and would have enabled the public 
opinion of the world to express itself. Even in 19 14 
it is possible that if each State had been compelled, 
on pain of incurring the hostility of nations not directly 
concerned, to refrain from setting its armies in motion 
for a period of six months, war would have been 
averted. 

There is therefore an evident need for the creation 
by the combined peace-loving and peace-ensuing nations 
of an organ suited to cases which are incapable of legal 
determination. This organ would be most useful if it 
were permanent, taking the form of a Council com- 
posed of persons representing each of the combining 
States, persons possessed not necessarily of legal attain- 
ments, though these would always be valuable, but of 
historical, geographical, diplomatic, and political knowl- 
edge, and, above all, of tact and experience in public 
affairs. 

The function of such a Council would be to examine 
and consider controversies between States which were 
endangering their friendly relations, and to endeavour 
to find means for pacifically adjusting differences, by 
removing their causes or by propounding a reasonable 
compromise between conflicting claims. This would 
be attempted by diplomatic methods, but in some cases, 
especially where the States concerned seemed unamen- 
able to persuasion, it would be useful to publish a report 



1 84 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

upon the situation, setting out the case made by each 
State, delivering the opinion of the Council upon the 
merits of the issues, and recommending an adjustment 
calculated to reduce tension and avert hostilities. Such 
a Report would have a double value. It might affect 
the minds and allay the passions of the contending 
parties, for it usually happens that each nation is fed 
up, by its own politicians and its own press, with ex- 
aggerated and fallacious views of its own claims, views 
which moderate men are denounced as unpatriotic for 
seeking to correct. At least one recent war could be 
mentioned which would never have come about had 
the people who were thus beguiled into it known the 
full truth. Not less important would be the service a 
Report might render in providing other nations with 
the means of forming a just judgment on the respective 
claims of the disputant States. Any war arising any- 
where over the earth has now become an evil to the 
world which the public opinion of the world ought to 
be invoked to avert. That opinion is a growing 
power. Think of the efforts made from 19 14 onwards 
by Germany on the one hand and the Entente Allies on 
the other to win it over to their side. If its weight 
were thrown in favour of either party it might deter the 
other from resorting to hostilities. 

It seems better not to bestow on a Council of Con- 
ciliation any executive powers. It may work more 
freely without them. But for the purposes of enquiry 
and report it must be allowed time. Months might 
be required from the moment when the danger of war 
appeared before the suggestions of the Council could 
be addressed to the parties involved and a fair chance 
secured for mediation. Here, however, a grave diffi- 
culty presents itself. Time has become more important 
than ever in war. The promptitude with which the 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 185 

German armies flung themselves across the Bohemian 
frontier in 1866 and the French frontier in 1870 gave 
to them, as to the Japanese armies in 1903, an initial 
advantage which affected the whole course of the cam- 
paign. An ambitious nation that has made up its mind 
to fight will not likely forgo such an advantage. It 
will desire to strike at once and strike hard, as Ger- 
many struck in 19 14. How is it to be induced to hold 
its hand till the voice of reason can be heard, till 
methods of Conciliation have had their chance? Only 
by the interposition of a power superior to its own. 

This consideration brings us sharply back to the 
question of Compulsion. We have seen that it is idle 
to construct a system of international law without Force 
behind it. Force and nothing but Force will restrain 
those to whom Might is Right. A tribunal will be 
ineffective without some means of giving effect to its 
decisions. A body selected to apply methods of con- 
ciliation will be little regarded unless it represents 
potential power, ready to be put in action by those 
who have created it. And it is even more plain that 
States disposed to reject arbitration or conciliation will 
fall upon their neighbours as suddenly as they can unless 
the fear of a Force stronger than their own deters 
them. 

The Force needed for all these purposes must be 
greater than any one violent and rapacious State or any 
probable combination of rapacious States can put forth. 
It is to be found in a League for securing Peace, able 
to make its Will to Peace prevail against the Will to 
Violence of bellicose nations. This is the sort of 
League which the men of good-will over the world 
now desire to establish. 

Among the other questions that arise as to how 
such a League can be created and what is the machinery 



1 86 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

by which it must work, I will deal with two before 
proceeding to consider the obstacles that must be sur- 
mounted before the League can be created. One is: 
Who shall be the members of the League? There has 
been much discussion as to what States shall be admitted. 
It is asked: " Why not make it a World League and 
invite all States to join? " It is answered: "There 
may well be States which would enter with no honest 
purpose, but rather to conceal their own selfish aims, 
or possibly to try to wreck the enterprise. To admit 
such would be dangerous." Are we then to admit 
none but free nations (i.e. democracies), because such 
nations only can be trusted to desire justice and peace? 
This would furnish a line of discrimination nearly yet 
not quite complete, because there might well be a truly 
constitutional monarchy or republic, whose government, 
although not wholly popular, might be trusted to be- 
come an honest and useful member of a Peace League. 
Chile, a constitutional republic but hardly to be called 
a democracy, is an instance. It must also be observed 
that there are in the Western hemisphere some so- 
called " republics " which are really military tyrannies, 
and so not fit to be received. Their rulers, having 
no responsibility either to their subjects or to the public 
opinion of the world, could not be trusted. Perhaps, 
therefore, the simplest plan may be to leave it to those 
States which first form the League to decide whom 
they will admit as partners. It will be the interest 
of these original members to strengthen the combina- 
tion by including in it all States whose loyalty to its 
principles is beyond question. 

It has been often asked whether Germany and 
Austria can be admitted. Is not this a question that 
cannot be answered till the end of the war has come? 
Should that much-desired moment see a repentant 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 187 

Germany, " regenerate in the spirit of its mind," its 
claim to co-operate could not be denied and would in- 
deed be welcomed. We do not desire a League against 
Germany, but one in which a new, de-Prussianized 
Germany would honestly join in promoting a World 
Peace. But should the present military oligarchy be 
still in the saddle, ferocious and unscrupulous, dominat- 
ing a too submissive people, he would be a sanguine 
man who could believe that such a Government as that 
of the Prussian Junkers has shown itself to be would 
join the League except with a purpose of undermining 
it. Rather would its threatening presence require 
either the continuance of the existing Alliance of the 
Entente Powers or the maintenance by the future Peace 
League of military and naval armaments amply suffi- 
cient to hold it in check. 

The other question is: What shall be the Organs 
of the League? Of these Organs two have been al- 
ready mentioned, the Court of Arbitration and the 
Council of Conciliation, the former of which might 
consist of from twelve to fifteen judges, while the num- 
ber of the latter, which would probably act largely by 
Committees, might run up to twenty, the members of 
each being chosen from the nations composing the 
League, and all the larger of these nations being 
represented on the Council. Besides these bodies there 
will be needed another for the purpose, essential after 
the shocks which the war has given to the fabric of in- 
ternational law, of rebuilding that system of rules in a 
fuller, clearer, and more authoritative form. For this 
there must be a sort of legislature, composed of repre- 
sentatives of all the States within the League, each ap- 
pointing at least one member. Rules drafted by this 
body, which might be called the Conference or Congress 
of the League, would be submitted to the Governments 



1 88 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

of the Component States, to be by them either adopted 
or referred back for further consideration till finally 
approved. If adopted by a prescribed majority of 
the States, they would become binding on all the States, 
and constitute, subject of course to subsequent amend- 
ments from time to time, a Code of International 
Law. 

A second Organ also may be found necessary in order 
to make effective the machinery described for prevent- 
ing war. A Court of Arbitration and a Council of 
Conciliation will lose half their value if there be not 
some means of compelling disputant States within the 
League, and also any State outside it which had a con- 
troversy with a State within it, to resort to one or other 
of these methods before taking hostile action. There 
must be executive action in the background, and means 
for determining when and how to act must be provided. 
Two such means may be suggested. One is for the 
Governments of the States within the League, at the 
request of any one of their number, to consider forth- 
with together what action they will jointly take. The 
other is to constitute a permanent Executive of the 
League, consisting of representatives chosen by the 
States, which would meet in conclave as soon as signs 
of danger appeared and recommend the measures of 
coercion required. Arguments may be advanced in 
favour of either method. 

Some of our friends in America who have given 
much thought to this subject conceive that the League 
ought to have two other Organs also. One of these 
would be a tribunal to decide, where the point seemed 
doubtful, whether any particular controversy between 
States ought to be referred to the Court of Arbitration 
or to the Council of Conciliation. They suggest that 
a body, which might be called the Court of Conflicts, 



vin CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 189 

should be formed from the same members of the Arbi- 
tration Court and some members of the Council of 
Conciliation to determine such cases. The other 
Organ would be a Court in which suits raising pecuniary 
claims might be brought by individual citizens or cor- 
porations of one country against the Government of 
some other country. Cases of this kind are frequent, 
and often involve protracted diplomatic discussions 
and long delays. It would be convenient to make regu- 
lar provision for them. The judges to hear and de- 
cide them might be a branch of the Court of Arbitra- 
tion. 1 

It has been asked whether every State is to be equally 
represented in the various Organs of the League. As 
respects the Arbitral Tribunal and the Council of Con- 
ciliation, since the excellence of these bodies depends 
on the personal qualities of their members, the best men 
ought to be selected, wherever they can be found, but 
the large majority of such men will obviously be found 
in the five or six greatest States. In the Conference or 
Congress, since the rules it prepares are meant to be 
generally binding, every State must have a voice, though 
the greater would be entitled to a larger representation 
than such small States as those of South-Eastern Europe 
and of the tropical parts of the New World. Equality 
between Powers like France and the United States on 
one side and Montenegro or Salvador on the other 
would be not justice but injustice. Still more clearly 
will the great States have larger representation in any 
executive authority, since it is upon them that the duty 
of enforcing the decisions of the League will chiefly 
or perhaps wholly fall. 

As respects the executive action of the League, i.e. 

1 A Court of this kind was created in 1912 by a treaty between Great Britain 
and tlie U. S. for the determination of claims, some of which were more than 
a century old. 



i 9 o ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

the prevention of a recourse to war before the Arbitral 
Tribunal has given its decision, or before the Council of 
Conciliation has accomplished its work of enquiry and 
mediation, two questions have to be answered. Ought 
the League to confine itself to securing either Arbitra- 
tion, or a period of time sufficient for enquiry and for 
Conciliation, leaving the disputant parties alone so soon 
as one or other method has been applied? Or ought it 
to go further and compel, by coercive means, those 
disputant parties to obey the decision of the Tribunal 
given in a justiciable controversy, or to comply with 
the recommendations of the Council in other (i.e. non- 
justiciable) matters? The American League to En- 
force Peace have inclined to the former plan, thinking 
that it is unwise to attempt, at present, anything more 
far-reaching. Others conceive that this is not enough, 
because a powerful and aggressive State might disre- 
gard the decision given or recommendation made and 
proceed to attack its weaker opponent. Nothing, they 
say, can be relied on to prevent this and give due pro- 
tection to the weak except the knowledge that the whole 
force of the League will be arrayed against aggression. 
Whichever view may be taken as to this point, there 
will be two engines of compulsion available. One is 
the application of armed force. The League must 
have at its disposal military and naval resources suffi- 
cient to protect any of its members who accept the de- 
cision, or (as the case may be) recommendations 
against an antagonist who disregards them. This 
raises the question whether the League should maintain 
a regular standing army and navy under the control of 
its Executive, or be content to call upon the several 
States that compose it to make up such an army by 
contributing their prescribed contingents. The former 
plan would make military operations more effective, 



vni CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 191 

for unity of command could be better secured, but the 
latter, as leaving greater independence to the several 
Powers, would probably be preferred by their Govern- 
ments. 

Supposing this latter plan to be approved, it has bee» 
suggested that the States comprising the League might 
be divided into two classes: (1) The Great Powers, 
who would be bound to put their military and naval 
forces at the disposal of the Executive; and (2) the 
Minor Powers, which would assume belligerency 
against any State attacking a member of the League, 
but would not be required by the Executive to con- 
tribute military or naval support, though they would 
join in whatever measures of economic compulsion 
might be decreed. 1 

This compulsion would be the grand method appli- 
cable against a recalcitrant State. It might be applied 
as a first step, to be followed, if necessary, by military 
action. It would consist in a commercial, financial, 
and possibly also a postal and telegraphic boycott. 
All the members of the League may refuse to send 
goods to it or receive goods from the offending State, 
and may forbid their citizens to lend money to it. It 
may be cut off from communications by post or tele- 
graph. All supplies to it of raw materials needed for 
industries may be stopped and all banking transactions 
interdicted. Objection to such measures of commercial 
restriction has been taken on the ground that they 
might operate unequally among the members of the 

1 Those who had talked of boycotting Germany and Austria as soon as this 
war is over had much better wait to see how the war ends. How can they 
declare that the war ought to be prosecuted till the German Government has 
been made powerless for evil, and also assume that the Government will, at the 
end of the war, be as powerful for evil as ever, able to resume its insidious 
schemes against the industries and resources of other countries? If it is then 
still able to do so, by all means let us deal vigorously with such a menace. 
Most of us, however, believe that if, even after realizing to the full the dis- 
aster to which the perfidy of her rulers has led, Germany still remains un- 
repentant, she can be disabled from all such plots. 



i 9 2 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

League itself, affecting the industry and commerce of 
some members much more than those of others. This 
might conceivably happen, but after all such countries 
would suffer more by war. 

The refusal to a manufacturing country of raw 
materials for its industries and a market for its prod- 
ucts would be a penalty it would scarcely venture to 
defy. Such a method might often be speedier than 
war, and quite as effective. But its efficacy would de- 
pend upon its being reserved as a weapon to check some 
aggressive action against a member of the League. 
An economic boycott applied in normal peace times by 
one nation or group of nations against the legitimate 
trade of a foreign country would be a means of pro- 
voking rather than of preventing war, and might not 
be resorted to by the Allied nations against Germany 
and Austria, as some have suggested should be done in 
any event after the war. As Mr. Lloyd George has 
well said: "We must not arm Germany with a real 
wrong." A League honestly desiring peace could not 
take such action except as a penal measure against an 
aggressive State hereafter threatening its neighbours 
with hostilities. 

• Other useful objects which might fall within the scope 
of the League's activities have been put forward. One 
is the protection of native races in tropical countries 
from exploitation by European Governments or Euro- 
pean adventurers. 1 Another is the elaboration of rules 
for securing the free passage of goods by rivers or rail- 
roads from inland countries to the sea. A third is the 
making of regulations which would reduce the spread 
of disease (and especially of epidemics) from one coun- 
try to another. A fourth is the rendering of guidance, 
as, for instance, by providing capable officials, to back- 

l An interesting suggestion as to such action in Africa has been made by 
Sir S. Oliver, formerly Governor of Jamaica. 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 193 

ward countries that need them, or by advice as to their 
financial engagements. A fifth is the consideration of 
measures for improving industrial conditions on parallel 
lines in different countries. Every region, every peo- 
ple, is now more closely bound to every other than in 
former days, and each has become more dependent on 
the others for weal or woe, so that without pursuing 
the illusion of a " world government " there are many 
ways in which the joint action of nations may enure to 
the benefit of all. 

These schemes, however, I must pass by — they are 
too complicated for brief treatment — to speak of one 
more nearly related to that preservation of peace which 
will be the main aim of the League. It is the question 
of Armaments. The gigantic armies and navies — 
to which we must now add the increasing air forces — 
which great nations have been maintaining, have proved 
to be not so much, as was often represented, an insur- 
ance against war as rather an incitement and tempta- 
tion to it. They have imposed a crushing burden upon 
the peoples of the Great Powers, a burden which must 
become greater as science goes on producing new and 
ever costlier warlike engines and devices. Must it not 
be a main function of any Peace League to bring armies 
and navies and air fleets down to a modest level and 
keep them from hereafter expanding? 

Few will deny that this is an admirable aim, entirely 
within the scope of the League. Nothing would be 
more helpful. It is indeed essential. But how is it 
to be carried out, even if the manufacture of armaments 
be kept entirely within the hands of Governments? 
Doubters ask: "Upon what principles can the pro- 
portions of armed forces be allotted to different nations 
be determined? What security can each have that 
others will not exceed the limit prescribed? What 



i 9 4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

means can be found for detecting and checking the pro- 
hibited increase of their forces and their stores of muni- 
tions? Estimates presented to a Legislature purport- 
ing to be for one purpose may be covertly transferred to 
another purpose. The German Reichstag is said to 
have been in this way often overreached. Many kinds 
of war materials and contrivances may be secretly manu- 
factured. Articles needed for peace purposes may be 
capable of being rapidly adapted to the purposes of 
war. How are such things to be prevented? " These 
are questions which we must hope to see answered, but 
the answers are not yet forthcoming. Since it is evi- 
dent that the peace-loving nations cannot reduce their 
respective armaments till they have a ground for secur- 
ity in an armed Force upon which they can rely to 
defend each one of them against attack from outside, 
this is a matter of urgent importance. 

Other objections of wide scope which have been 
taken to the scheme of a Peace League deserve con- 
sideration. It is better to face them at the outset and 
see how they can be met than hasten forward in a 
spirit of easy optimism. 

i. It is argued that when a State enters into a per- 
manent compact, binding itself to submit to Arbitration 
or Conciliation all its controversies with other States, 
it necessarily renounces some of its self-determination 
and sovereignty. Doubtless it does. But it does this 
whenever it concludes a treaty. Every contract a man 
makes creates an obligation limiting his antecedent free- 
dom of action. But men make contracts because they 
expect to gain more in other ways than they lose in the 
particular part of their freedom they part with. 1 So 
does a State. Here the gain is immense. There will 

l " The question for every contracting party in all forms of contract," says 
Sir F. Pollock, " is whether the portion of liberty he surrenders is adequately 
recompensed by the portion of reward or security he acquires." 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 195 

doubtless be cases in which a State will dislike a sum- 
mons to defend its conduct before a Court of Arbitra- 
tion or* a Council of Conciliation. But this must be 
faced if the League is to attain its ends; and we may 
expect from such a Court and Council as the League 
will create an upright and impartial handling of the 
matters referred to them. Even the strongest State 
has more benefits to expect for itself from the security 
of a world peace than it could obtain by war, while the 
benefit to humanity at large is immeasurable. 

2. I need not stop to refute the Prussian doctrine that 
frequent wars are needed to maintain the virility and 
courage of a nation, — " a drastic medicine for the 
human race," says Treitschke, " which God will always 
provide," — for that doctrine has found its completest 
disproof in the present war. The two great nations 
of the world who have least desired war, thought of 
war, prepared themselves for war, have been the peo- 
ples of Britain and America. They ought, on the 
Prussian theory, to have been found when war came 
feeble, spiritless, effeminate. But what have we seen? 
Britain raised in three years an army of five millions, 
most of them volunteers, and these men have come 
from the pursuits of peace, the rich as gladly as the 
poor, to show a valour and an endurance never sur- 
passed by their ancestors in the fighting days of the 
Middle Ages. The men of America, even (if that be 
possible) more pacific in their spirit, have flown to 
arms and thrown themselves into the conflict with a 
whole-hearted enthusiasm which has amazed those who 
did not know what the American people are. Heroism 
is not made by military drill and practice. It dwells 
in the hearts and the ideals of a people, and while these 
are sound, it responds to the call of duty. 

But a word must be given to another argument. It 



196 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

is sometimes said that the patriotic sentiment will be 
weakened by a League which relies upon and seeks to 
foster the sentiment of human brotherhood, making 
men recognise an allegiance to mankind, a sense of what 
he owes to its common welfare. But is this so? Will 
this effect follow? Is there not room for both feel- 
ings ? Why should a citizen feel his duty to his coun- 
try any the less because he feels a duty to his larger 
fatherland the world? Does a man cease to be a 
patriotic Virginian or Californian because he recog- 
nises a higher allegiance to the United States? Has 
Scottish national pride proved incompatible with zeal 
to serve the United Kingdom and the British Common- 
wealth of Nations? Is a father less likely to love his 
family and do his best for them because he is a public- 
spirited citizen, always at the service of his neighbours 
and his city, or a less earnest and devoted member of 
his own Church because he wishes to see all the 
Churches brought together in a reunited Christendom? 
Love, and the expression of Love in duty gladly done, 
are things of which it can be said that the more we give 
the more we have to give, according to the famous 
lines : 

I could not love thee, Dear, so much, 
Loved I not honour more. 

3. To extend to every State a guarantee against an 
attack by any other State might (it is argued) have the 
effect of perpetuating injustices or grievances suffered 
by a part of the population of a State, for some other 
State might be thus prevented from compelling, by 
threats of war, the redress of those grievances. The 
existing conditions would be stereotyped, however un- 
fair they might be to some sections of a State's sub- 



via CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 197 

jects, however likely to go on breeding discontent. 1 
Suppose the Government of a country to treat part of 
its subjects as Austria has treated the Czechs, or Prus- 
sia the Poles of Posen, or as the Spanish Government 
treated Cuba before 1898. Is a Peace League to ar- 
rest all efforts from without, made by a nation sympa- 
thizing with these subjects, to remove the grievances 
they suffer from? It may be answered that under the 
scheme outlined above such grievances could be brought 
before, and be dealt with by, the Council of Concili- 
ation. But the Council would not have the power to 
extinguish them should its recommendations be re- 
jected. May there not then be a case either for allow- 
ing interference by a sympathetic State or for empow- 
ering the League to interfere? If the matter tran- 
scends the functions of the Council of Conciliation, the 
members of the League might (it has been suggested) 
meet in Congress to consider it. 

4. Does there exist a due supply in the world of 
the persons fit for such difficult duties as those which 
the scheme entrusts to the Tribunal of Arbitration and 
for the still more delicate functions of the Council of 
Conciliation? Judges of sufficient legal learning and 
skill as are required may perhaps be found to staff the 
Tribunal, though there are none too many. But the 
men qualified for the Council are extremely few. A 
knowledge of history and geography, of diplomacy, 
and of the political conditions of the different countries 
of the world is needed, for the work is international. 
And besides the tact and good sense required, the Coun- 
cillors must have that superiority to national prejudices 
and that reputation outside their own country which 

1 This difficulty points to the propriety of endeavouring to remove (so far 
as possible) at the end of the present war all such sources of future trouble. 



198 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

would give them a truly international authority. As 
to this it may be answered that under the new condi- 
tions we hope for, the supply of men required will tend 
to increase, and each people will know more of those 
who reach eminence and inspire confidence in other 
countries. 

5. Can any League of Nations be trusted to with- 
stand the temptations which will assail its members? 
Timidity, jealousy, self-interest will not cease to affect 
Governments. Intrigues proceeding from the ill-will 
of States outside the League, or from some treacherous 
Government of one of the States inside it, must be con- 
templated as possible, intrigues designed to bring about 
a failure to perform the obligation to join in applying 
compulsion. To use a colloquial phrase, " Will the 
nations in the League play up? " If even one nation 
fails at the critical moment, others may make that fail- 
ure a pretext for withdrawal. Then the League 
would fall to pieces, and those who, in reliance on it, 
had reduced their armaments would be exposed to sud- 
den danger. Some one may say, " These are prophe- 
cies, and, according to the proverb, you cannot argue 
with a prophet, but you can disbelieve him." Here, 
however, there is no case for confident disbelief. The 
risks predicted cannot be lightly dismissed. Have we 
not just seen men who came into power by a revolution 
in a great empire repudiate the solemn engagements 
which its Government had made three years before, 
and not only abandon the Allies whom it had itself 
drawn into a tremendous conflict, but deliver over to 
their enemy regions of immense strategic importance, 
which were immediately occupied and used by that 
enemy against them ? There are, however, risks which 
must be faced where the greatness of the aim in view 
makes it worth while to go on. In this instance we 



vih CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 199 

may weigh some considerations which inspire hope. 
Should a League to Enforce Peace be now formed, and 
should it come before long to include all, or nearly all, 
the great free and peace-loving Powers, its members 
will have time to form a habit of joint action and mu- 
tual confidence before any severe strain is put upon the 
obligations they have undertaken. The exhaustion 
and impoverishment caused by the present war will 
prevent any Power, however aggressive its spirit, from 
being able to threaten its neighbours for a good many 
years to come. Within those years the League may 
become an established institution, liable no doubt to 
find matter for controversy in the changing relations 
of countries to one another, but not likely to push its 
controversies to extremes. International relations may 
be raised to a higher plane of honour and justice. 
Threats of war may go out of fashion among those who 
remember what the sufferings of war were. Thus the 
sense of duty to mankind at large and to the great com- 
mon aim of peace will have time to ripen and become 
durable in the minds of the next generation as the pub- 
lic opinion of the world, which is on the whole pacific, 
and ought to grow more than ever pacific while it re- 
members what misery this war has brought upon this 
generation, acquires more and more influence on every 
nation. The mere fact that the League exists as an 
organization created to represent the joint interest of 
all men of good will cannot but help to nourish and de- 
velop the spirit of goodwill and human brotherhood. 

Let us remember that the wars of the past have been 
mostly made by despots, or by oligarchies; and it is by 
them that the faith of treaties has been mostly broken. 
But now, in nearly all the great States, power has 
passed to the people, but the people can be trusted 
better than the monarchs or the oligarchs of former 



200 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

days, both to realize the value of peace and to do all 
they can to secure it. Democracies also have been 
sometimes swept by passion or lured into war by mis- 
representation; yet they are likely to feel a clearer duty 
both to refrain from aggression and to check it when 
attempted by others. They will better recognize the 
obligations of international honour and good faith, 
and their responsibility to mankind at large. They 
will feel more respect for the public opinion of the 
world. 

Once the League of Peace has been established, its 
very existence will embody in visible form the principle 
of the solidarity of free nations, and will foster the 
sentiment of human brotherhood. Every year that it 
lives on ought to increase its moral authority and 
strengthen the respect for the decisions of its Courts. 

These are hopes, not certainties. But they are not 
dreams, there are solid grounds for the hopes; and this 
time is one in which we must hope, for if we do not 
hope we must despair. If we do not try to end war, 
war will end us. Moments come when evils have 
grown so frightful that new and bold experiments must 
be tried to escape from them; times when men must go 
forward in the strength of faith and hope. 

It is among the masses of the people in this country 
that the warmest zeal has been shown for this benefi- 
cent idea. It is from the great democracy of the West 
and its leaders, President Wilson and others, that the 
most powerful impulse has come. The difficulties are 
doubtless great. Much wisdom, much skill, will be 
needed to surmount them. But the people must sup- 
ply the motive power. They must push statesmen for- 
ward. They must join in guiding the policy of the 
League and to help it by their watchful sympathy. 
And behind the sympathy there must be to inspire it 



v,m CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 201 

the sense of a great and high motive. Our motives 
and those of our Allies in this war are purer than ever 
were seen in a war before. We are fighting for 
Righteousness against Wickedness, fighting to protect 
the weak, to secure the recognition of conscience and 
duty as the highest powers, the powers on whose rule 
the safety of the world depends. It is this motive that 
has brought America to our aid, America, which had 
no interest of her own to secure, and had hitherto 
watched from afar, in happy security, the strifes and 
sorrows of the Old World. 

It may be convenient to sum up in a few propositions 
the reasons for creating a Peace League and the essen- 
tial features which it ought to possess. 

1. The prevention of future wars will be, after this 
war has ended, one of the supreme needs of the world. 

2. War can be prevented only by submitting for it 
methods of Arbitration and Conciliation as the means 
of settling international disputes. 

3. Arbitration and Conciliation cannot succeed un- 
less there is Compulsive Force behind them. 

4. Compulsive Force can be secured only by the co- 
operation and combination of peace-loving nations, i.e. 
by a League to Enforce Peace. 

5. Every member of such a League must undertake 
to accept Arbitration or Conciliation in any controversy 
it may have with another member. 

6. The League shall undertake to defend any one 
of its members who may be attacked by any other State 
which has refused to accept Arbitration or Conciliation. 

7. The League will require four organs for its 
action: (a) a Tribunal to arbitrate on justiciable con- 
troversies, (b) a Council of Conciliation to enquire into 
and apply mediation in non-justiciable controversies, 
(c) a representative Conference or Congress to amend, 



202 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

develop, and codify international law, and (d) an 
Executive Authority to decide on the time and methods 
of applying (and to supervise the application of) meas- 
ures for compelling disputant States to submit to arbi- 
tration and to allow time for Conciliation before re- 
sorting to hostilities. 

8. The methods of Enforcement may be either the 
use of economic pressure or the use of armed force, or 
both, as the Executive Authority may determine. 

9. The League shall adopt any measures it finds to 
be practicable for bringing about a general reduction of 
military and naval armaments. 

These may be taken as the chief points on which 
most of those who have been advocating the project in 
Britain and America are agreed. Other points of im- 
portance, but on which some difference of opinion exists, 
are the following: 

(a) What shall be the principle regulating the ad- 
mission of States to a Peace League? 

(b) Shall all the members of the League (great and 
small) have equal powers and responsibilities, or, if 
not, how shall these be distributed? 

(c) How shall the persons to serve on the Tribunal 
of Arbitration and on the Council of Conciliation be 
chosen? 

(d) Shall the Executive Authority of the League 
consist of persons representing the Governments of the 
States who are its members, or how otherwise? 

(e) Shall the Council of Conciliation have power to 
act when it sees dangers which threaten peace looming 
up, without being invoked by a disputant State? 

(/) Shall the League have a standing army and 
navy, or shall it obtain its necessary forces by summon- 
ing the contingents of the States (or of the greater 
States) when the need for military action arises? 



VIII 



CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 203 



{g) Shall a decision to apply compulsion (economic 
or military) require the concurrence of all the States 
who are members of the League, or, if not, what ma- 
jority shall be required? 

(h) Shall force (economic or military) be applied 
only to compel the acceptance by disputant States of 
Arbitration or of Conciliation (as the case may be), or 
also to compel such States to obey the judgment of the 
Tribunal of Arbitration, or the recommendations of the 
Council of Conciliation, as the case maybe? 

(i) What methods are to be resorted to for secur- 
ing a reduction of military and naval armaments? 

(;*) To what extent may the diplomacy of the States 
composing the League continue to be conducted se- 
cretly? 

(k) Are the States composing the League to be at 
liberty to make separate treaties with one another? 

(/) Are tariff duties on imports and the fiscal rela- 
tions generally of the States composing the League, to 
fall to any, and, if so, to what extent, within the scope 
of the League's action? In particular, are preferential 
duties on imports to be deemed incompatible with the 
successful working of the League? 

Such a list as this, incomplete as it is, of problems to 
be solved in setting up some machinery for averting 
war, shows how immensely difficult is the task. Timor- 
ous minds will recoil from it. But what is the alterna- 
tive? Are we to fall back upon the old diplomatic 
methods, condemned by failure in the past? Can we 
acquiesce in the continuance of that international anar- 
chy out of which the catastrophe of 19 14 arose? Will 
there ever be again a moment so favourable as that 
which the end of this war will afford for a supreme 
effort to save civilization from relapsing into a strife 
that will blast the hopes of human progress? 



2o 4 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap.vhi 

The reason and the conscience of mankind have been 
roused to-day as they were never roused before to a 
sense of the moral as well as the material ruin wrought 
by war, for no conflict has ever inflicted such wide- 
spread suffering, has evoked such furious hatreds, has 
so gravely affected neutral nations, has brought death 
or misery to so many innocent non-combatants. If we 
do not try to make an end of war, war will make an 
end of us. In every free country the best minds must 
now address themselves to the means of deterring ag- 
gressive Governments from war and enthroning Pub- 
lic Right as the supreme Power in international affairs. 
With goodwill, with an unselfish devotion to the high- 
est and most permanent interests of humanity, nothing 
is impossible. 

If we let slip this opportunity for the provision of 
machinery by which the risk of future wars may be 
averted or reduced, another such opportunity may 
never present itself. If things are not made better 
after this war, the prospect will be darker than ever. 
Darker because the condition of the world will have 
grown so much worse that the recurrence of like calami- 
ties will have been recognized as a thing to be expected 
and the causes of those calamities as beyond all human 
cure. Rather let us strive that all the suffering this 
war has brought, all the sacrifices of heroic lives it has 
witnessed, shall not have been in vain. 



APPENDIX 

I subjoin as outlines of possible methods for establishing a 
Peace League the two following schemes, one prepared in the 
United States, the other by a small group of Englishmen : — 

LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 

(American Branch) 

President — The Hon. William Howard Taft 

Secretary — Wm. H. Short, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 

Platform 

It is desirable for the United States to join in a league of 
nations binding the signatories to the following : — 

1. All justiciable questions arising between the signatory 
Powers, not settled by negotiation, shall, subject to the limita- 
tions of treaties, be submtited to a judicial tribunal for hearing 
and judgment, both upon the merits and upon any issue as to its 
jurisdiction of the question. 

2. All other questions arising between the signatories and not 
settled by negotiation shall be submitted to a Council of Concil- 
iation for hearing, consideration, and recommendation. 

3. The signatory Powers shall jointly use forthwith both 
their economic and military forces against any one of their 
number that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against 
another of the signatories before any question arising shall be 
submitted as provided in the foregoing. 

4. Conferences between the signatory Powers shall be held 
from time to time to formulate and codify rules of international 
law, which, unless some signatory shall signify its dissent within 
a stated period, shall thereafter govern in the decisions of the 
Judicial Tribunal mentioned in Article 1. 

205 



206 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap. 

SCHEME DRAFTED BY A BRITISH GROUP, 1915 
Justiciable Disputes 

1. The signatory Powers to agree to refer to the existing 
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, or to the 
Court of Arbitral Justice proposed at the second Hague Con- 
ference, if and when such Court shall be established, or to some 
other arbitral tribunal, all disputes between them (including 
those affecting honour and vital interests), which are of a jus- 
ticiable character and which the Powers concerned have failed 
to settle by diplomatic methods. 

2. The signatory Powers so referring to arbitration to agree 
to accept, and give effect to, the award of the tribunal. 

3. " Disputes of a justiciable character " to be defined as 
" disputes as to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any question 
of international law, as to the existence of any fact which, if 
established, would constitute a breach of any international obli- 
gation, or as to the nature and extent of the reparation to be 
made for any such breach." 

4. Any question which may arise as to whether a dispute is 
of a justiciable character, to be referred for decision to the Court 
of Arbitral Justice when constituted ; or until it is constituted, 
to the existing Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. 

Permanent Council of Conciliation 

5. With a view to the prevention and settlement of disputes 
between the signatory Powers which are not of a justiciable 
character, a permanent Council of Conciliation to be consti- 
tuted. 

6. The members of the Council to be appointed by the several 
signatory Powers for a fixed term of years, and vacancies to be 
filled up by the appointing Powers, so that the Council shall 
always be complete and in being. 

7. In order to provide for the case of disputes between a 
signatory Power and an outside Power which is willing to sub- 
mit its case to the Council, provision to be made for the tem- 
porary representation of the latter. 

8. The signatory Powers to agree that every party to a 
dispute, not of a justiciable character, the existence of which 
might ultimately endanger friendly relations with another sig- 
natory Power or Powers, and which has not been settled by 
diplomatic methods, will submit its case to the Council with a 
view to conciliation. 



vm CONCERNING A PEACE LEAGUE 207 

9. Where, in the opinion of the Council, any dispute exists 
between any of the signatory Powers which appears likely to 
endanger their good relations with each other, the Council to 
consider the dispute and to invite each Power concerned to sub- 
mit its case with a view to conciliation. 

10. Unless, through the good offices of the Council or other- 
wise, the dispute shall have previously been settled between the 
parties, the Council to make and publish, with regard to every 
dispute considered by it, a report or reports, containing recom- 
mendations for the amicable settlement of the dispute. 

11. When it appears to the Council that, from any cause 
within its knowledge, the good relations between any of the sig- 
natory Powers are likely to be endangered, the Council to be at 
liberty to make suggestions to them with a view to conciliation, 
whether or not any dispute has actually arisen, and, if it con- 
siders it expedient to do so, to publish such suggestions. 

12. The Council to be at liberty to make and submit for the 
consideration of the signatory Powers, suggestions as to the limi- 
tation or reduction of armaments, or any other suggestions 
which in its opinion would lead to the avoidance of war or the 
diminution of its evils. 1 

13. The signatory Powers to agree to furnish the Council 
with all the means and facilities required for the due discharge 
of its functions. 

14. The Council to deliberate in public or in private, as it 
thinks fit. 

15. The Council to have power to appoint committees, which 
may or may not be composed exclusively of its own members, to 
report to it on any matter within the scope of its functions. 

Moratorium for Hostilities 

16. Every signatory Power to agree not to declare war or 
begin hostilities or hostile preparations against any other signa- 
tory Power (a) before the matter in dispute shall have been 
submitted to an arbitral tribunal, or to the Council; or (b) 
within a period of twelve months after such submission; or (c), 
if the award of the arbitral tribunal or the report of the Coun- 
cil, as the case may be, has been published within that time, 
then not to declare war or begin hostilities or hostile prepara- 

t It will be observed that it is not proposed to confer any executive power 
on the Council. 



208 ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES chap.viu 

tions within a period of six months after the publication of such 
award or report. 1 

Limitation of Effect of Alliances 

17. The signatory Powers to agree that no signatory Power 
commencing hostilities against another, without first complying 
with the provisions of the preceding clauses, shall be entitled, by 
virtue of any now existing or future treaty of alliance or other 
engagement, to the military or other material support of any 
other signatory Power in such hostilities. 

Enforcement of the Preceding Provisions 

18. Every signatory Power to undertake that in case any 
Power, whether or not a signatory Power, declares war or be- 
gins hostilities or hostile preparations against a signatory Power, 
(a) without first having submitted its case to an arbitral tri- 
bunal, or to the Council of Conciliation, or (b) before the 
expiration of the hereinbefore prescribed periods of delay, it will 
forthwith, in conjunction with the other signatory Powers, take 
such concerted measures, economic and forcible, against the 
Power so acting, as, in their judgment, are most effective and 
appropriate to the circumstances of the case. 

19. The signatory Powers to undertake that if any Power 
shall fail to accept and give effect to the recommendations con- 
tained in any report of the Council, or in the award of the 
arbitral tribunal, they will, at a Conference to be forthwith 
summoned for the purpose, consider, in concert, the situation 
which has arisen by reason of such failure, and what collective 
action, if any, it is practicable to take in order to make such 
recommendations operative. 2 

1 If an agreement for limitation of armaments had been arrived at, any de- 
parture from the agreement would presumably be taken to be a " hostile prepa- 
ration," until the contrary were shown. 

2 The measures contemplated in paragraphs 19, 20 would, of course, be taken 
by the Governments of the signatory Powers acting in concert, and not by the 
Council of Conciliation. 



PBINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OJ 1 AMEEICA 



T 



HE following pages contain advertisements of Mac- 
millan books by the same author. 



" The most comprehensive and certainly the clearest and most 
illuminating work that has yet been written on the history and 
present conditions of the South American Republics."— San 

Francisco Chronicle. 



South America: 

Observations and Impressions 

By JAMES VISCOUNT BRYCE 

Former British Ambassador 

Author of " The American Commonwealth," " The Holy Roman 
Empire," etc. 

New and revised edition. Colored maps, cloth covers, gilt top, $2.75 

WORLD-WIDE OPINIONS 

"An exhaustive account of South America by that keen observer 
of international affairs, Ambassador James Bryce . . . destined to 
rank as an authoritative work." — N. Y. Times. 

" A gift for which to thank the gods. It is impossible to give 
more than a faint hint of all the wealth of reflection, observation, 
and learning in these chapters. The whole book is memorable, 
worthy of the topic and the man." — London Daily Chronicle. 

"A book which compels thought. A work of profound interest 
to the whole of South America. Every chapter of Mr. Bryce's book 
would provide material for an entire volume." — Translation from 
the State Journal of St. Paul, Brazil. 

" A wonderfully fascinating and informative work . . . will en- 
hance Mr. Bryce's reputation as a keen, scholarly, and analytical 
commentator on the people and governments of the world." — Phila- 
delphia Record. 

" One of the most fascinating books of travel in our language. 
... A valuable political study of the chief South American states." 
— London Daily Mail. 

" A comprehensive work devoted to the continent from the pen 
of the man best fitted to comment impartially on what he has wit- 
nessed. . . . This new book by the distinguished ambassador should 
find a place in every well-equipped library." — Boston Budget. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



Mr. Bryce's Great Work of South America Translated in the 
Spanish Language 

La America del Sud 

Observaciones e Impresiones 

By JAMES VISCOUNT BRYCE 
Translated into Spanish by Guillermo Riv 

Cloth, 8°, $2.50 

Not only has the success of Mr. Bryce's " South America : Ob- 
servations and Impressions " in English been pronounced, but 
there has been such an insistent demand for a Spanish version that 
the present work has been prepared. Mr. Rivera has translated 
the text with admirable fidelity to the original, and those who 
have been deprived of the opportunity of reading the volume be- 
cause of the unfamiliarity with the language may now turn to it 
confident that it is not an adaptation which is being presented to 
them, but a true rendition of the author's thoughts and point of 



The Holy Roman Empire 

By JAMES VISCOUNT BRYCE 

Revised edition, cloth, 8°, $2.25 

"The ripe scholarship, the philosophic insight, and the judicial 
temperament of the distinguished author are revealed with in- 
creased vividness, and the treatise as it stands to-day is more than 
ever an impressive illustration of literary evolution. That a prize 
composition should grow into such a monument of erudition is diffi- 
cult to realize." — Outlook. 

" This latest edition has taken into account fully the results of 
modern historical research. A concluding chapter ... on the new 
German Empire ... a chronological table and three maps have also 
been added." — Review of Reviezvs. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



The American Commonwealth 

By JAMES VISCOUNT BRYCE 
New Edition, revised throughout, after many reprintings 

In two crown 8vo volumes, $4.00 

" His work rises at once to an eminent place among studies of great nations 
and their institutions. It is, so far as America goes, a work unique in scope, 
spirit, and knowledge. There is nothing like it anywhere extant, nothing that 
approaches it. . . . Without exaggeration it may be called the most consider- 
able and gratifying tribute that has yet been bestowed upon us by an English- 
man, and perhaps by even England herself. . . . One despairs in an attempt to 
give, in a single newspaper article, an adequate account of a work so in- 
fused with knowledge and sparkling with suggestion. . . . Every thoughtful 
American will read it and will long hold in grateful remembrance its author's 
name." — New York Times. 

" Written with full knowledge by a distinguished Englishman to dispel vul- 
gar prejudices and to help kindred people to understand each other better, 
Professor Bryce's work is in a sense an embassy of peace, a message of good- 
will from one nation to another." — The Times, London. 

" This work will be invaluable ... to the American citizen who wishes some- 
thing more than superficial knowledge of the political system under which he 
lives and of the differences between it and those of other countries. . . . The 
fact is that no writer has ever attempted to present so comprehensive an 
account of our political system founded upon such length of observation, 
enriched with so great a mass of detail, and so thoroughly practical in its 
character. . . . We have here a storehouse of political information regarding 
America such as no other writer, American or other, has ever provided in one 
work. ... It will remain a standard even for the American reader." — New 
York Tribune. 

The American Commonwealth 

Abridged Edition, for the use of Colleges and High Schools. Being 
an Introduction to the Study of the Government and Institu- 
tions of the United States. By JAMES VISCOUNT BRYCE. 
One Volume. Crown 8vo. $1.75 

" It is a genuine pleasure to commend to our readers the abridged edition 
of 'The American Commonwealth' just issued by the Macmillan Company. 
Mr. Bryce's book, which has heretofore been issued only in two volumes, has 
no peer as a commentary upon American political institutions." — Public 
Opinion. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



OTHER WORKS OF VISCOUNT BRYCE 
Studies in Contemporary Biography 

Cloth, 8vo, $3.00 net 

" It is long since we have had occasion to welcome a collection of essays 
so attractive on the score both of subjects and of treatment as will be found 
in the volume entitled, ' Studies in Contemporary Biography.' " — New York 
Sun. 

" There still falls to our hand an occasional volume that is not romance, 
and yet is ruddy and vital with the blood of life: such a one, among our newer 
books, is ' Studies in Contemporary Biography.' " — Success. 

University and Historical Addresses 

$2.25 

The range of topics is a wide one and insures a general appeal. The Begin- 
nings of Virginia, What University Instruction May Do to Provide Intellectual 
Pleasures for Later Life, The Influence of National Character and Historical 
Environment on the Development of the Common Law, Thomas Jefferson, 
Missions: Past and Present, The Art of Augustus St. Gaudens, The Study of 
Ancient Literature, Some Hints on Reading — these are a few of the titles. 

Evidence and Documents on Alleged 
German Outrages 

Paper, $.50 

Evidence and Documents laid before the Committee on Alleged German Out- 
rages. Being an Appendix to the Report of the Committee appointed by His 
Britannic Majesty's Government and presided over by The Right Hon. Viscount 
Bryce, O.M., etc., etc., formerly British Ambassador at Washington. Contain- 
ing Details of Outrages on the Civil Population in Belgium and France; The 
Use of Civilians as a Screen; Offences against Combatants; Firing on Hospitals, 
Stretcher Bearers, etc.; Extracts from Diaries and Papers of German Soldiers; 
Proclamations by Certain Army Authorities; Some Articles of the Hague Con- 
vention Concerning the Laws and Customs of War; Facsimiles of Papers Found 
on German Soldiers. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



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